23 Mar 2025

Capacitating the criminal justice system, reconsidering the bail system as well as the inclusion of victims and families when considering bail are issues the courts should consider to prevent crime.

Addressing the National Crime Prevention Conference in Gaborone recently, Francistown High Court president, Judge Lot Moroka said the delay in trying cases was caused by the judicial system.

He said delays in murder case trials could exceed five years resulting in new charge sheets years later than the crime committal date because the Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) would have registered it as a new matter. Judge Moroka said that murder cases currently taking place would be brought before the courts in three years-time and be tried in 2031.

“We are failing our people as a system somehow. We need to talk about why we are failing,” he said, adding that the delay was due to lack of police resources to timely complete investigations.

He also said the DPP’s delay to forward matters to the courts was due to lack of capacity and partly due poor systems. Judge Moroka said punishment of offenders should have purpose which included deterrence, rehabilitation, incapacitation, retribution, restoration, education and renunciation as it had potential to encourage and prevent crime.

Trials are expensive and a criminal trial for a victim is not a profitable enterprise as failure to prevent crime has a bearing on allocating resources competing with other national demands, he said. He also said once one was found guilty there were several ways to administer punishment such as fines and corporal punishment for those below 40 years of age.

Judge Moroka said bail was granted depending on the origins of the offence and offences related to gender-based violence (GBV) as well as the reasons put forward by the prosecution. He said the weakness of the criminal justice was that victims turned to state witnesses or appendages to their trial and were hardly heard so were not consulted on matters pertaining to bail.

“We need to take victims into account in bail and in determination of bail. The victim must come from the periphery to the center. In consideration of bail, we will broaden the scope especially. We will hear the victims. We will do more incquiries and we should be slow in granting bail so that we avoid repeat offenders,” he said.

He further said there were many cases of GBV where women were murdered by partners.

“Having grown up in the Criminal Justice System, I have seen a deterioration in our ethical constitution as a nation,” he said.

Judge Moroka said before one broke the law they broke the ethical code of conduct.

“Before you rape and break the law, you have to break ethics because ethics are the first line of defence for communities. We have become deadened to the infraction of the ethical code. This is a self-inflicted breakdown in law and order,” he said. ENDS