the Botswana Centre for Human Rights - Ditshwanelo - held a one-day seminar for legal practitioners.

the Botswana Centre for Human Rights - Ditshwanelo - held a one-day seminar for legal practitioners. During the seminar, British High Commissioner, David Merry said that Britain and European Union would continue persuading Botswana to remove the death penalty from its laws. 
The theme of the seminar was 'The proper conducting of a death penalty case'.
Participants condemned the death penalty as inhumane and suggested that executions could be carried out with dignity. They said the process of offering clemency to condemned prisoners was questionable. They also stated that the time frame between being denied clemency and the execution was not enough for relatives to bid farewell to the accused.
Deputy Attorney General, Leatile Dambe defended the government on its stance on the death penalty, saying that it was in line with the will of the nation. She cited lack of preparedness by defence counsel, which had denied accused people the right to justice. She said that sometimes the defence would raise a crucial point when the case was already at a very advanced stage. "Sometimes when the case is at higher courts, the defence would raise a point that would be dismissed because it was never raised at the lower court."
Dambe said that clemency was an issue that takes over where the law ends.