—You are the new custodians of legal greed
Basotho, just when you think we have run out of creative ways to sabotage ourselves, the Law Society of Lesotho steps forward like a magician pulling fresh foolishness out of an old hat. Just when you think we have exhausted our supply of national embarrassments, the Law Society’s well-fed guardians of the legal purse rise majestically to prove us wrong.
This time, the “learned” custodians of the legal profession have apparently decided that the greatest threat to justice in Lesotho is not corruption, not endless trial delays, not the price of legal fees — but NGOs representing poor people in court.
Yes. You read that correctly.
The Law Society has resolved that organisations like WLSA and Seinoli Legal Centre — outfits that have spent decades helping indigent Basotho navigate the legal system — should no longer have practising lawyers. They may exist, they may talk, they may hold workshops, but when it comes to actually standing in court for a battered woman, a dispossessed widow, or a wrongfully dismissed worker — sorry, that privilege is now reserved for those who can pay.
One almost admires the efficiency. Why bother reforming the justice system when you can simply remove the poor from it altogether?
Let us be honest about what this decision really means.
In Maseru, a middle-class professional with a salary can still find a lawyer. In the districts, a domestic worker earning M1,200 a month, a herd boy cheated of wages, or a woman escaping violence cannot. They have relied on NGOs because NGOs do what the market refuses to do: represent people who cannot pay.
But apparently that is now considered an intolerable disturbance to the legal ecosystem. One can almost hear the quiet panic in certain chambers: “If NGOs keep helping people for free, how will we bill?”
So the solution? Simple. Close the door. Then declare, with straight faces, that justice remains open to all.
This is not regulation. This is gatekeeping dressed up as professionalism.
The Law Society would like us to believe this is about rules and practising certificates. Scrutator suggests it is about something far less noble: protecting turf. If the poor must have lawyers, they must have them at market rates — or not at all.
Access to justice, in this new vision, is not a right. It is a luxury item, like imported cheese.
What makes this especially galling is that these NGOs do not send paralegals to impersonate advocates. They use qualified, admitted legal practitioners — the very same species the Law Society claims to regulate in the public interest. Yet somehow, when those lawyers work for an NGO serving the poor, they become a constitutional crisis.
One wonders: is the Law Society a regulator of standards — or a cartel with a dress code?
Because the effect of this decision is clear. It will not punish NGOs. It will punish the indigent litigant in Mokhotlong who has no money for a private lawyer. It will punish the woman in Qacha’s Nek trying to get maintenance. It will punish the orphan fighting for inheritance against powerful relatives.
And when those people lose their cases — not because the law was against them, but because they stood alone in court — we will be told solemnly that justice has been done.
This is how inequality hardens into structure. First you make legal help unaffordable. Then you make free help illegal.
The Constitution speaks loftily of equality before the law. The Law Society appears to have added a footnote: “Terms and conditions apply. Must have cash.”
Scrutator hopes the Constitutional Court reminds our “learned” friends of a basic truth: the legal profession exists to serve justice — not to ration it.
If this decision stands, let us at least stop pretending. Let us admit that in Lesotho, the scales of justice are not merely unbalanced — they are fitted with a coin slot.
Insert money to proceed.
Errant members
It is remarkable how swiftly the Law Society can mobilise when the target is the poor.
Let an NGO lawyer help a battered woman or a dispossessed pensioner, and suddenly emergency meetings are convened, resolutions are drafted, and practising certificates are weaponised with impressive efficiency. The machinery of regulation hums like a well-oiled engine.
But let a well-heeled practitioner fleece a desperate client, mishandle trust money, or dish out catastrophic legal advice to a government ministry that later costs taxpayers millions — and the same machinery develops a mysterious limp. Files gather dust. Investigations drift. Accountability becomes a rumour.
Apparently, the Law Society’s enforcement priorities are crystal clear: harsh on those who help the poor for free, gentle with those who profit from their misery.
Where is this famous regulatory zeal when ordinary Basotho are left penniless by legal misadventures? Where is the righteous thunder when state institutions are saddled with ruinous legal bills because someone, somewhere, gave advice that would embarrass a first-year law student?
Scrutator cannot help noticing that the Society’s sternest discipline seems reserved not for incompetence, not for exploitation, not for ethical lapses that harm the public — but for lawyers who have committed the unforgivable sin of making justice accessible without a price tag.
One begins to suspect that the true offence here is not unprofessional conduct. It is unprofitable compassion.
And so the fat cats purr in their chambers, robes neatly pressed, declaring that standards must be upheld — just not the standard that says the legal profession exists to serve the public before it serves itself.
Once again, shame on you Law Society fat cats masquerading as executives. You are not only an embarrassment to your profession, you are an embarrassment to your moms and grandfathers.
Thank God, your decision to ban well-meaning NGO lawyers will not stand. No Court will endorse such crass stupidity.
