[5] Under Section 4 of the Citizenship Act, legitimate children could only derive Motswana nationality if their father was a citizen of Botswana, despite the fact that they were born in the country and had lived there their entire life.
[4] High Court judge, Martin Horowitz found in favor of Dow, concurring that the law impacted her free choice of whom to marry, could force her to be separated from her family if her husband and children's residency permits were not renewed, and was discriminatory.
[5][9] He justified the sex-based discrimination in the Citizenship Act as necessary to preserve the male-oriented custom of Motswana society and prevent dual nationality.
[13] The majority of the justices, Amissah, Akinola Aguda, and George Bizos determined that under the merits of the case, the Constitution forbade gender-based discrimination.
[14] As for standing, Amissah noted that the respondent (Dow) merely had to have a reasonable belief that her rights might be breached to seek redress from the court.
[15] Justice Aguda agreed, stating that if Dow's husband and children were refused admission to Botswana, she would rightly feel that she had been subjected to degrading treatment and could seek relief on those grounds.
[20] By 2010, changes had been made to the nationality laws in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, to eliminate at least some of the gender-based discrimination in their nationality laws.
[20] The case thrust Dow into the national and international spotlight and in 1997, she was appointed as the first woman to serve on the High Court of Botswana.