The President is an ex officio member of the Assembly. There is also a House of Chiefs comprising chiefs of the eight principal Batswana tribes as ex officio members, four members elected by sub-chiefs from their own number, and three members elected by the twelve combined. The House of Chiefs has advisory powers only. Full protection of fundamental rights and freedom of the individual is provided for in the Constitution. An independent judiciary interprets and administers the Constitution and other laws.
Civil law is Roman-Dutch law while the criminal law is based on English law.
Customary law is also recognised in the rural areas. Government revenues were highly dependent on foreign aid and the remittances of Batswana employed in South Africa. While this performance was partly due to the expansion of the beef industry, the predominant cause was the discovery and development of valuable mineral resources, especially diamonds of which Botswana is the world's second largest producer. The most important mining company in Botswana is Debswana, a joint venture between de Beers and the Botswana Government. Apart from diamonds, Botswana has abundant reserves of coal, copper, nickel, soda ash, potash and sodium sulphate, substantial deposits of salt and plutonium, as well as smaller reserves of gold, silver and a variety of industrial minerals.