Businessman Bakang Seretse who is fighting a P42m judgement has now turned his fire on the judge who delivered it, accusing one of Africa’s most respected jurists of prejudging him.
Seretse has lodged a complaint with the Judicial Services Commission(JSC), demanding an investigation into whether Justice Edwin Cameron’s conduct created an appearance of prejudgment, compromised judicial impartiality and resulted in him being treated unequally before the Court of Appeal.
Seretse has not only put Justice Cameron on the JSC’s examination table, he is also challenging the independence of the process that will examine Cameron.
He is also demanding that two key members of the JCS, Judge President Tau and Attorney General Dick Bayford should stay out of the process that will decide his complaint
The complaint filed under the JSC (Code of Conduct and Enforcement Procedures) Regulations, centers on two Court of Appeal judgments delivered by Cameron in separate cases arising from the National Petroleum Fund controversy.
The challenge puts the conduct of a judge with an exceptional international reputation under scrutiny. Cameron, a former justice of South Africa’s Constitutional Court and Supreme Court of Appeal, spent 25 years on the South African bench and built a reputation as a leading jurist and human-rights advocate. Nelson Mandela famously described him as one of South Africa’s ‘ new heroes’.
Seretse, however argues that Cameron’s language in the two NPF-related judgments went beyond judicial findings and revealed a recurring pattern of prejudgment against him.
The first was delivered in February 2024 when a panel comprising Justices Singh Walia, Johan Froneman and Edwin Cameron dismissed an appeal by Seretse against a High Court decision that granted the Directorate of Public Prosecutions and Bank Gaborone civil forfeiture of 26 assets, including luxury vehicles and properties.
The second judgment was handed down on 31 July 2026 when Cameron, sitting with Justices Tebogo Tau and Isaac Lesetedi, overturned a High Court ruling and granted summary judgment against Seretse and Khulaco (Pty) Ltd, ordering repayment of P42 million to government together with interest.
While the two matters concerned different legal disputes, Seretse argues that they reveal a recurring pattern in the language used by Cameron.
In the 2024 forfeiture appeal, Cameron described the movement of NPF funds through a network of companies as occurring through an apparent ‘honeypot’ from which a ‘near frenzy of looting’ depleted public funds. The judgment further referred to recipients becoming ‘fabulously enriched’ from transactions linked to the fund.
In his complaint, Seretse contends that these descriptions did not originate from the High Court judgment delivered by Justice Omphemetse Motumise and instead reflected Cameron’s own characterisation of the evidence.
‘Cameron JA did not simply adopt or accurately summarise Motumise J’s findings. He repeatedly intensified and personalised them,’ Seretse states in the complaint.
The complaint identifies a series of expressions used in the judgment, including references to a ‘monstrous fraud’, a consultancy agreement described as ‘equally bogus, a tawdry copycat’, ‘phoney names’ and documentation characterised as ‘all equally fake’.
Seretse argues that the language transformed findings relating to disputed transactions into conclusions about his personal honesty and character.
Particular emphasis is placed on a passage in which Cameron questioned how Seretse accumulated luxury assets and suggested that he had advanced a purported consultancy contract as an explanation for his wealth. According to the complaint, the judgment attributed motive and intention to him despite the fact that no oral evidence had been heard and no witness had been cross-examined.
The complaint further challenges Cameron’s use of language in the 2026 Khulaco judgment.
That matter arose after government appealed a High Court refusal to grant summary judgment in proceedings seeking recovery of approximately P42 million. Government argued that Khulaco and Kgori Capital were effectively Seretse’s alter egos and that fiduciary duties owed to the state had been breached. Cameron agreed with the state’s position, finding that the companies operated under Seretse’s control and that significant conflicts of interest had not been disclosed.
In challenging the judgment, however, Seretse focuses on several phrases used by the court.
The complaint cites a passage in which Cameron wrote that a reader of Seretse’s correspondence could infer that he had ‘a sticky finger in the deal (indeed, many sticky fingers).’ It also points to references to ‘a monstrous heist’ and ‘the whiff of fraud that strongly lingers’.
According to the complaint, such language amounted to ‘exceptional personalised condemnation’ of a litigant whose alleged misconduct had not been tested through a full trial.
Seretse argues that the issue is particularly significant because the Khulaco matter concerned summary judgment proceedings. He notes in the complaint that there was no oral evidence, discovery process or cross-examination of allegations relating to fraud, collusion, fiduciary breach and corporate alter ego.
Beyond the language used in the judgments, the complaint raises concern about Cameron’s participation in the 2026 appeal. Seretse asks the JSC to investigate the circumstances under which the judge, who ordinarily resides outside Botswana, was assigned to the panel that heard the Khulaco appeal after having authored the earlier 2024 judgment involving him. The complaint requests that the JSC obtain the full records of both Court of Appeal matters, compare the language used by Cameron with that contained in the original High Court judgments and investigate whether a reasonable observer could question the appearance of impartiality arising from the repeated use of similar language across related NPF cases.