Africa-Press – Botswana. Consultations with keys stakeholders are on-going to ensure that delivery of justice is not compromised where the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has not yet taken over prosecution of criminal matters, says Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Mr Nelson Ramaotwana.
“We are also in consultation with other stakeholders, in particular Botswana Police Service (BPS) to revisit the issue of delegating DPP’s prosecutorial powers for non-complex cases in order to ensure that justice is dispensed timeously through the completion of cases within a reasonable time,” he said.
Presenting the 2025/2026 budget estimates for the Attorney General’s Chamber (AGC), which was passed by Parliament on Monday, Mr Ramaotwana said the AGC existed to provide legal services to government. He said the AGC had four divisions being Civil Litigation Division (CLD), Legislative Drafting Division (LDD), International and Commercial Division (ICD) and Corporate Services Division (CSD). He said office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) aspired to prosecute all criminal cases.
However, Mr Ramaotwana said the ambition was greatly impacted by acute shortage of resources for takeover project, which aimed to relieve BPS of the delegated prosecutorial powers previously bestowed upon them. He said it became even more urgent to review the project to determine whether it was feasible to continue with it without the provision of the necessary resources.
“The DPP has also not been sparred by the perennial high attrition of prosecutors. Consequently, our prosecutors are saddled with high case ratios and this greatly negates our efforts to dispose of cases within a reasonable time which in turn results in backlog which is undesirable,” said Mr Ramaotwana. He said challenges relating to the takeover project was further compounded by the high attrition of prosecutors resulting in an increased workload affecting timeous dispensation of justice.
At this point, Mr Ramaotwana said complete takeover of prosecution duties from BPS had been achieved in Selebi Phikwe magisterial district with six BPS stations. Elsewhere, he said 26 out of 79 BPS stations had been relieved of prosecutorial duties by various DPP offices being Gaborone (7), Lobatse (4), Francistown (4), Maun (2), Palapye (3), Kasane (5) and Tsabong (1).
He also said DPP would work effectively, prudently in running its affairs and independent budget from that of the AGC. Therefore, he said it was crucial to de-link the DPP from AGC and resource it both financial and non-financial. He said the de-linking would entail the amendment of the Constitution.
He said the proposed budget allocation of P397 584 440 under recurrent and P23 618 951 under development was to fund ongoing projects and takeover of prosecutorial services from BPS among others. Mr Ramaotwana concurred with legislators that AGC was losing experienced lawyers as the workload was overbearing on them. He said AGC civil litigation alone had a shortage of over 67 lawyers.
He said the justice system was not all about winning a matter, but was primarily on arriving at the decision in a fair, independent and credible process. Mr Ramaotwana said that where possible it was important to consider the process of out of court settlement.
Mr Galenawabo Lekau, MP for Mogoditshane West said police officers had been prosecutors for the longest time, therefore, if possible they should be transferred to DPP to continue with what they had been doing for many years.
Kgatleng West MP, Dr Unity Dow said civil litigation department must increase the 30 days statutory notice, given to a person who wanted to take government to court, to at least 60 days. She appealed to government to be transparent on hiring of private lawyers as it appeared to favor a few. She said government must establish panels depending on the lawyer’s area of speciality and even engage them on rotational basis.
Mr Victor Phologolo of Kanye South said the country used to have foreign judges, who helped the judiciary grow; a judiciary, which is now mostly dominated by local judges. He said same should apply to lawyers, as currently foreign lawyers dominated the judicial sectors. “We are not saying we should shut the door on them, we should be intentional towards giving the locals opportunities to work and grow,” he said. He said there was no use producing law graduates when the environment was not conducive for them to get employment.
Mr Kenny Kapinga, MP for Okavango West, said AGs must have a cohort of lawyers who specialised on drafting of contracts. He said it was concerning that government ended up losing labour matters in courts due to poorly drafted contracts. He said the principles of prosecuting a case were in black and white unless there were realistic prospects of conviction and the matter was of national interest.
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