Chief Justice laments high divorce rates

Divorce cases in the country are said to be growing at an alarming rate and in the process impacting the lives of children negatively.

Chief Justice Maruping Dibotelo says divorce is a matter at the heart of the fabric of the society and indeed the cohesion of the family unit. Dibotelo revealed that 1, 301 divorce cases were registered at the High Court in the period between January and December 2016, of which 1, 435 cases, including those carried forward from 2015 were completed compared to the 971 cases recorded in 2012.

“This is a sensitive subject which I approach with circumspection. Others would rather prefer I skirt or shy away from discussing it altogether. Anyone, irrespective of their situation in life, may find themselves having to invoke the provisions of the Matrimonial Causes Act seeking for a divorce,” said Dibotelo during the official opening of the 2017 Legal Year.

The Chief Justice said psychologists say children are the most affected by the escalating divorce rates. He stated that he is constrained, as he did in the 2011 and 2013 Legal Year addresses, to express “my concern regarding the high divorce rate for a small population as ours. My interactions also reveal that my concerns are not misplaced as they are similarly shared out there.”

Dibotelo explained that the high divorce rate shows that people no longer respect marriage and that the marital vows are no longer held sacred as they used to be in the past. Dibotelo challenged Batswana to arrest the situation by utilising the time-tested restorative interventions and the traditional extended family system to keep the marriage and family set-up intact.