Court to decide on hemp production
After a long legal battle between government and a hemp farmer, the Court of Appeal (CoA) will put the matter to rest and decide if the production continues or not.
The farmer, Daniel De Beer, was earlier this year given the green light to continue with hemp production by the High Court but the government took the case to the appeals court arguing that the licence to such production was granted illegally and had to be revoked.
De Beer had taken the government to court seeking a review of the decision that revoked his licence that was granted to him in October 2018 to produce the hemp plant on a large scale for industrial and medicinal purposes.
The State believes the case was not decided properly at the High Court as there were many irregularities with the filing of a review application by the farmer.
According to court papers, the government argued that the review application was filed with a condonation without the court’s leave so the judge was wrong to hear the application in the first place.
“The farmer’s attempt to file a review application that incorporated condonation without first seeking leave was improper and the supposed application should have been struck out,” the State argued.
The State added it was common cause that the farmer’s application was filed out of time as per the rules of the court, therefore, the judge was wrong to decide the matter and giving him the green light to resume production of the plant.
Subsequently, the State wants the High Court judgement reversed and the production stopped as the whole process of licence granting was marred with controversy, the reason why it was revoked after investigations.
The hemp farmer on one hand does not agree with the State pointing out that all court processes were followed.
In his court papers, De Beer submitted that if there was someone who did not follow the court process it would be the government in the appeal as it filed most of its papers out of time without leave of court.
“State filed their heads on September 28, while the Registrar explicitly stated that the heads were to be filed exactly two weeks from August 18, 2022,” he said.
De Beer argued that the State’s defiance of all the rules of court and without any explanation amounted to contempt.
He said the appeal was bad in law and not legally before the court, therefore it should be dismissed.
De Beer is Fresh Standard director, a company that was granted an exemption to plant and grow hemp. Hemp is a cannabis-like plant for medicinal and industrial purposes.
The farmer had gone into a legal battle with government after saying he invested millions of pula into the project
State’s defiance of all the rules of court and without any explanation a mounted to
contempt
based on an exemption granted by the former agriculture minister, Patrick Ralotsia, only for the police to raid and uproot his fledgling crops suspecting that the plants were cannabis commonly known as ‘motokwane’.
De Beer fought for the revocation to be reviewed, saying in October 2018 he received the exemption to grow, process, and produce products from cannabis sativa and hemp dominant strands for medical and industrial purposes in the country.
He said following the granting of the exemption, he spent millions of pula in establishing the business, but his farm was on or about May 7, 2019, raided by officers of the Narcotics Squad of the Botswana Police Service.
De Beer added the move by the government forced him to make an urgent enquiry as to why the uprooting happened as the company was operating lawfully before he got to know about the withdrawal of the exemption.
He contended that the communication about the withdrawal was illegal in that it was contrary to the empowering statute and unreasonable because the decision was made without affording him any form of hearing despite the serious effect that the decision had on his business.
McErick Attorneys represented De Beer while M K Moesi & Co represented the State. Judgement will be delivered on November 4.