… calls it “stupid” for punishing “people who are already suffering economically”
GAZETTE REPORTER
Civil imprisonment of debtors is “stupid remedy” and should be abolished, the Minister of International Relations, Dr Phenyo Butale, has said.
Deliberating on the Committee of Supply for the Department of Administration of Justice, Dr Butale questioned why the government continues to incarcerate people who “genuinely” cannot pay their debts.
“This civil imprisonment is a stupid remedy for debtors,” he asserted. “I believe that the government should abolish it because it abuses people who are already suffering economically.
Jailing impoverished people
“How can we imprison a person who has already shown that they are struggling financially and are genuinely failing to pay?
“Why are we imprisoning impoverished people yet on the other hand are dragging our feet to prosecute those who swindled the government?”
Dr Butale argued that jailing debt defaulters increases the government’s burden in caring for them.
Poverty a gateway to prison
“The government is already struggling to take care of its people, yet we are increasing its responsibility by imprisoning defaulters,” he argued.
“It seems, in our country, poverty is a gateway to prison. This civil imprisonment should totally be scrapped from our judiciary.”
He criticised the role of deputy sheriffs in enforcing civil imprisonment, calling for stricter regulations to curb “their harassment” of debtors.
Money for the weekend
“This lack of regulation of deputy sheriffs should be looked into because people who have civil cases are always harassed by these officials,” Dr Butale noted.
“In most cases, on Fridays, deputy sheriffs target those with civil cases. They harass and threaten them just because they need money for the weekend.”
The minister called for transformation of ineffective judicial processes. “Any judiciary process that does not work or serve the people should be transformed,” he said.
Ex-BCL miners
Following the sudden closure of the BCL Mine in October 2016, then Minister of Mineral Resources, Green Technology and Energy Security, Eric Molale, told Parliament that over 100 former miners had been sent to civil imprisonment due to failure to repay debts incurred while they were still employed.
Realising that more ex-miners faced the same fate, he engaged a legal clinic to represent them pro bono.