Give IEC adequate resources-Dibotelo

Chief Justice Maruping Dibotelo has pleaded with the government to allocate state land to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), noting that the elections running body should have its own headquarters and acquire modern equipment that would enable it to speed up the counting of votes whenever there are elections.

“The IEC is an important institution which ensures that the electoral process in this country is not compromised. In view of the key role played by the IEC in supporting the rule of law, it is critical for it to be further strengthened through the allocation of proper and adequate resources to effectively live up to the expectations of this nation,” said Dibotelo when officially opening the legal year at Gaborone High Court on Wednesday.

On other issues the Chief Justice expressed concern over huge sums of uncollected child maintenance claims, stating that this is caused by the current collection points.  “As long as the points remain unchanged, we are likely to witness a continuing increase of uncollected child maintenance money, thus rendering the making of child maintenance orders by our courts insignificant.”

For his part Chairperson of Law Society of Botswana (LSB), Lawrence Lecha expressed concern over the appointment of Court of Appeal (CoA) judges, saying the process is process is shrouded in secrecy. According to him such an approach impacts negatively on the independence of the court.