Those who appear before Botswana High Court’s Judge Athaliah Molokomme would hope she is as fair to them as she appears to be to the media.
On Thursday, Judge Molokomme, who has been appointed that country’s attorney general, declined to have an interview with the Mail & Guardian. “Journalists here know that I have an open-door policy towards the media. But I have refused to give interviews to the local media and they will kill me if I were to give it to you,” she said with a cross-border warmness.
Hers is a friendlier way of saying “judges speak through their judgements”, as her colleagues around the world are wont to say.
Women’s advocacy organisation Gender Links’s Colleen Lowe Morna says Judge Molokomme’s appointment is a milestone for the region. “Athaliah has a long history of involvement in the women’s movement and the struggle for women’s rights,” Lowe Morna says. “Women remained under-represented in the legal justice field and hopefully Judge Molokomme’s appointment would herald the opening of doors for more women.” She hoped that Judge Molokomme would use her influence to change laws and legal systems that kept women subordinate.
This year, Judge Molokomme received the United States ambassador’s award as one of the Vanguard Women Leaders of Botswana. She is a founder member of Emang Basadi, a women’s lobby and advocacy group.
Judge Molokomme, who holds a PhD in Law from Leiden University in The Netherlands, has taught and written widely on women and children’s rights issues in her country and in the region.
Her doctoral thesis was Children of the Fence: The Maintenance of Extra-marital Children Under Law and Practice in Botswana.
“I think someone like her will take her gender activism role with her to the new position,” says Lowe Morna.
“As far as we are aware, she will be the only woman attorney general in the region. Issues in Botswana are similar to elsewhere in the region. Many countries in the region use both customary law and Western codified legal systems. We hope these will be harmonised.”
Judge Molokomme has challenged the concept of ilobolo/bogadi (dowry) advocating that the practice be ceremonial rather than peremptory.
“In the past, bogadi did not define marriage. It was meant to benefit the children. People have now started to distort bogadi because they want to abuse it. It is now used to deprive other people of their rights, especially women and children. In my view, bogadi should be ceremonial. People should pay it if they want to. Traditional expectations can be satisfied without hurting anyone,” she wrote in Women and Law in Southern Africa.
She starts her new job in October.