As allegations of favouritism, interference, forum shopping and unbalanced empanelling of judges continue to rock the judiciary, Chief Justice Terrence Rannowane has dismissed the allegations as figments of people’s imaginations.

In an interview with Mmegi this week, Rannowane said there is no favouritism within the judiciary. He was quick to point out that it is false that he prefers some judges over others when dealing with ‘national interest’ matters. The CJ maintains: “There is no favouritism in the judiciary and no judge is preferred over the other. I keep an open-door policy in respect to both external and internal stakeholders. As a leader, I cannot please everybody or be liked by everybody. However, whoever is disgruntled or feels hard done by whatever decision I made, I am ready to give him or her audience so that we put our heads together to see what can be done to resolve the issue.”

Although he is willing to accommodate all views, the CJ is no push over. “It’s quite unhelpful and counterproductive to try and scare me with lawyers.”

Mmegi also put it to the CJ that some of his judges are unhappy with empanelling of judges hand-picked by him. Sources within the judiciary told Mmegi that some judges are unsettled and are complaining about being overlooked.

In response, Rannowane said he was not aware that some judges or members of the public are unhappy with the authority conferred upon him by Section 6 of the High Court Act to empanel judges to hear cases of exceptional public interest. He maintains that almost all the judges of the High Court have been called to participate in these panels.

The CJ says no complaint has reached his office. “I do not recall even a single judge declining to be appointed to these panels because of his or her dislike of the authority conferred upon me by that section. These empanelling has improved our jurisprudence in such areas as gender minority rights, dual citizenship rights, elections petitions just to name but a few,” he buttressed.

Commenting on separation of powers between the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary, the CJ maintains all three arms of government work separately but in unison governed by the rule of law.

“We have largely managed to maintain separation between the three arms of government, which provides a system of positive and healthy mutual checks and balances. However, this is work in progress and in my view more needs to be done especially in terms of putting in place a better funding formula for the Judiciary, but as they say, Rome was not built in a day,” the CJ said.

Many judgements in the recent past have encouraged and scorned State prosecutors and law enforcement for bringing accused persons before the courts before investigations could be completed. Asked to comment on the matter the CJ said: “Ideally, charges should be preferred only when the investigations are complete. However, there are situations where the prosecution can prefer a holding charge against a person before the investigations are complete. For example, a murder suspect can be held on a holding charge whilst awaiting a forensic report to confirm that indeed those are standing charges. But I still prefer that you investigate first then charge later.” In conclusion, the CJ remarked that he was unable to comment on ongoing matters before the court and asked Batswana to continue putting their trust in the legal process whilst assuring the independence of the courts.