CHAPTER 13:01
PRESCRIPTIONS

ARRANGEMENT OF SECTIONS

    SECTION

    1.    Short title

    2.    Interpretation

    3.    Acquisitive prescription

    4.    Extinctive prescription

    5.    Application of two or more periods

    6.    Beginning of prescription

    7.    Interruption of prescription

    8.    Suspension of prescription

    9.    Co-debtors

    10.    Disability of creditor

    11.    Absence of debtor

    12.    Application of Act

    13.    Action on an account

    14.    Application to State

    15.    Saving of immovable property of tribes

    16.    Prescription to be raised in pleadings

    17.    Enactments ceasing to apply in Botswana

Proc. 76, 1959,
Law 30, 1962,
L.N. 84, 1966,
S.I. 96, 2006.

An Act to amend the law relating to prescriptions.

[Date of Commencement: 4th December, 1959]

1.    Short title

    This Act may be cited as the Prescriptions Act.

2.    Interpretation

    In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires—

    "action" means any legal proceedings of a civil nature brought in a competent court in Botswana for the enforcement of a right but does not include any legal proceedings founded on customary law;

    "creditor" means a person by whom a right is enforceable by action;

    "debtor" means a person against whom a right is enforceable by action;

    "oral contract" means any contract other than a written contract;

    "person under disability" means—

    (a)    a minor;

    (b)    any person under curatorship;

    (c)    in the case of an action between spouses both the husband and the wife, unless they are living apart; and

    (d)    in the case of an action between partners in respect of rights arising out of the partnership, each partner for so long as he remains a member of such partnership;

    "prescription" includes acquisitive and extinctive prescription;

    "written contract" includes a contract of which the terms to be proved in order to establish the claim in issue are in writing if such writing is admissible in evidence.

3.    Acquisitive prescription

    (1) Acquisitive prescription is the acquisition of ownership by the possession of another person's movable or immovable property or the use of a servitude in respect of immovable property continuously for 30 years nec vi, nec clam, nec precario.

    (2) As soon as the aforesaid period of 30 years had elapsed such possessor or user shall ipso jure become the owner of the property or the servitude, as the case may be.

4.    Extinctive prescription