domestic level which follows the rules of natural justice and would not permit any springing of surprises. 43. Applicant alleges that in exercising his clemency, the President acts “arbitrarily”. The main issue is whether or not the Presidential clemency is what is envisaged in Article 4 of the Charter. Article 4 proscribes the arbitrary deprivation of the right to life. A process is put in all jurisdictions to ensure that due process is had in ensuring that the right to life is not violated. This process includes the holding of a trial so that an accused is given an opportunity to defend his cause. It is that process that can be challenged to be arbitrary. The intervention of the President does not in any way affect the non-arbitrariness of the process. The due process in Botswana was followed with the Applicant‟s case following the process that has been established to guarantee Applicant‟s rights. Her matter was heard in both the High Court and the appeal court. 44. It should also be noted that the exercise of clemency unlike the process described above, is discretionary in most jurisdictions and are for the most part discretionary; they are given to him to be 7 exercised in his own judgement and discretion Whilst the Constitution of Botswana provides for the constitution of an Advisory Committee on Prerogative of Mercy, the President is only required to request and get advice from that committee if he so wishes. However, he can only exercise his power of clemency after presentation of a written report of the case from the trial judge together with any other information that he may require. 45. The question then is whether or not the President arbitrarily deprived the Applicant of her right to 8 life. The word “arbitrarily”is defined in Black’s [Law] Dictionary “as fixed or done capriciously or at pleasure, without adequate determining principle, not founded, not done or acting according to reason or judgement, depending on the will alone, absolute in power, capriciously tyrannical, despotic, without fair solid and substantial cause, that is without cause based on law… Ordinarily „arbitrary‟ is synonymous with bad faith or failure to exercise honest judgement and an arbitrary act would be one performed without adequate determination of principle and one not founded in nature of things…” 9 A similar definition is provided in Stround’s Judicial Dictionary and Classen’s Dictionary of Legal 10 Words and Phrases . th 46. The other factor that needs to be considered is the time factor. On 30 January 2001, the Court th of Appeal dismissed the Applicant‟s case. On 5 February 2001 a memo from the Gaborone Women‟s Prison to the divisional Commander states that [the] Applicant was advised of her right to petition the th President. On 7 February 2001 the Attorney General of Botswana wrote to the Applicant‟s lawyers on th the issue. The lawyers wrote to the clemency committee on 26 February 2001 requesting for more th time to prepare a clemency petition. The preliminary submissions were only submitted on 15 March th 2001, one and half months after the Appeal was dismissed. It is acknowledged that [o]n 6 March the lawyers wrote to the President requesting for information as to when the clemency hearing was to be held. Attendance of the Applicant or her lawyers at the hearing is clearly impractical. One can envisage the President now sitting as a court to hear oral submissions from petitioners. Not only is the suggestion misconceived and implications thereof impractical, but the implications will also result in undermining the office and dignity of the President. 47. In any event, the right to be heard does not entail entitlement to the benefit of all the facilities which are allowed to a litigant in a judicial trial. Thus the “right to be heard” in appropriate circumstances may be confined to the submission of written representations. These are clearly appropriate circumstances for written representations. 48. However, it should be noted that a person must be given reasonable time in which to assemble the relevant information and to prepare and put forward his representations (see also Baxter op cit at p. 552.) Alleged Violation of Articles 1, 4 and 7.1: Execution of Applicant pending consideration of Applicant‟s Communication by the African Commission 49. The last argument is that Article 1 of the African Charter obliges a State Party to comply with the requests of the African Commission. The Complainants base this argument on the letter written by the