Misanet / Mmegi, 30 May - The three judges who presided over University of Botswana political science Professor, Kenneth Good, will on Tuesday deliver the much awaited verdict on whether Mr Good wins his case against deportation; or Botswana's President Festus Mogae gets his will of shipping the Professor out of the country.

Mr Good's case against deportation was heard at Botswana's Lobatse High Court on 3 May before a bench of three justices, Stanley Sapire, John Mosojane, and Stephen Gaongalelwe. The three judges have a tough task ahead of them.

If Mr Good loses the case, he might be forced to take the next flight home, and that will be a good day for the state.

The case has come a long way, even though the case against deportation only lasted one day. Mr Good was served with a deportation order on 18 February, giving him three days to leave. He (Good) through the representation of attorneys Dick Bayford, Joao Salbany and Duma Boko, made an urgent application to the high court on 19 February, and was granted a stay of execution to challenge his deportation by Justice Moatlhodi Marumo, which was unsuccessfully challenged by the state.

The argument presented by Mr Good's South African advocate Anton Katz in court centred a lot around asking the court to nullify the deportation order on technicalities.

Mr Katz strong argument in court was that the declaration by Botswana's President was not based on rational grounds because he failed to appreciate that a person could not be both a resident of a country and a visitor to Botswana at the same time, arguing that the President in his declaration referred to Professor Good as both a visitor and a resident of Botswana.

He told court that the President in doing that, committed both an error of law and an error of fact, asking the court to render President Mogae's declaration a nullity. The lawyer argued that it was obvious that the factors affecting the undesirability or otherwise of an inhabitant will be different to those affecting the undesirability or otherwise of a visitor to Botswana.

Professor Good - an Australian citizen - claims he is being expelled from Botswana because of his research critical to the government. The deportation order came as the professor had co-published a paper criticising the succession of Botswana's heads of state as undemocratic.

Ditshwanelo, the Botswana Centre for Human Rights, has repeatedly denounced the presidential order to deport Professor Good as a violation of his human rights. The group says this landmark case "questions the limits of presidential power, the place of the constitution and the rights of individuals to exercise their fundamental rights within a democracy."

By Maureen Odubeng

© Mmegi / afrol News

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