Access to justice onerous for citizens - Kapinga
Calls for capacitation of Customary Justice system
Member of Parliament for Okavango Kenny Kapinga has expressed concern about the difficulty to access justice for a significant population in the country.
According to Kapinga this is because legal services are very expensive and only a few people can afford to pay lawyers. The matters that they deal or are confronted with, are matters that can only be resolved or adjudicated upon by either the Magistrate Court or the High Court where legal representation is critical for one, Kapinga said.
Debating the Administration of Justice ( AoJ) 2021/ 22 budget proposal presented in Parliament by Minister of Defence Justice and Security Kagiso Mmusi, Kapinga pointed out that other things that make access to justice onerous on Batswana are rules that are applicable at the courts.
“Rules that are applicable at the High Court which make the process of litigation unnecessarily complex and protracted.
“We would like to emphasise that continuous reform in this area is needed, so that the rules are made much simpler and the process is made much shorter, so that people do not enter into too much expense when they try to access their right through the justice system,” he said.
Kapinga said in Botswana, “we have a justice system that we were born with and that is our Customary Justice System. This modern system that we seem to be gravitating towards, that we seem to be promoting, lifting to the expense of our Customary Justice System came as an alternative justice system”.
The legislator told Parliament that now the Modern System has become the dominant one.
“I am saying that if we are looking at reforming our Justice System, we have to accord the Customary Justice System the respect, equip and empower it legally as much as we can, so that it can harness a big number of cases from the Magistrate Court and the High Court system,” he emphasised.
He said the country has become too educated and sophisticated that it looks down upon Customary Courts and believe they cannot dispense justice as much as a Magistrate Court or a High Court can do. Kapinga added that it is high time that people change their mindset towards the Customary Justice system. According to Kapinga even some are agitating that they should even be striped further of their jurisdiction on civil and criminal matters.
“My submission is that we need to empower the Customary Courts even more than they are empowered at the moment. The other issue that I want to talk about is provision of security for our Magistrates and Judges. We had that discussion with the Minister, and I want to underscore it today that it is unfair to the police.
“The police are very nice, disciplined, law- abiding organisation. When they are called upon to assist, they are not difficult to extend their assistance, but sometimes we take too much advantage of them,” Kapinga submitted.
He prayed that the Judiciary should begin now to develop their own cadre which will provide the security for Judges and Magistrates and within the court room.
It is not the job of the police, said Kapinga who is a former police officer, adding that the police have their core responsibility to prevent and detect crimes which is affected when a significant number of their members are diverted to go and provide security for judges and magistrates.
Kapinga said another issue that really adulterates the justice system, is that people who have won civil matters in our courts, find it difficult to obtain or enforce their judgment.
“It takes too long, and it is even more expensive to obtain enforcement of your judgement because of the fees that are charged by our Deputy Sheriffs and our Bailiffs.
“At the Customary Court level, people have given up that it is not worth it because you get a judgment, and it does not get enforced because the department or the people that are supposed to enforce the judgement, are not given the resources that can enable them to enforce the judgement that has been granted against the defendant,” Kapinga stated.