Scrutator is establishing a charity fund for our lawyers after 58 of them were barred from practising because they could not afford their membership fees to the Law Society of Lesotho.
And how much is the membership fee per year?
Well, it’s only M500.
Those lawyers who you see at the courts carrying themselves in those long gowns are so poor that they can’t afford to pay M500 per year.
Most of them are a miserable lot.
I thought M500 was a bit hefty for a membership fee until I realised, after a little arithmetic of course, that the Law Society is only demanding that they pay M1.36 every day for the whole year.
That’s how wretched some of our lawyers are.
It’s sad that they can’t spare M1.36 a day to pay their membership fees.
A lawyer friend of mine tells me that the reason why most lawyers have been reduced to being vagabonds is because of the basic economic law of supply and demand.
You see, for the past three years NUL has been giving birth to law graduates like a pig does to piglets in its prime.
In a few years a swarm of lawyers, mostly incompetent ones, have invaded Lesotho.
But the market has not been giving birth to criminals at the same rate as NUL has been spewing out lawyers.
Because the market is shrinking competence has become a prerequisite for someone getting hired.
People now know the difference between a good lawyer and a pathetic one.
The incompetent ones will have to scramble for the crumbs that drop when the star lawyers are eating at the high table.
It’s such a sad sight to watch inept barristers jostle for morsels.
No wonder why one of them has gate-crashed into journalism.
Scrutator is told that for as little as a 5kg bag of maize-meal you can make a Maseru lawyer work his socks off.
For the price of three cups of hopose you can make a local advocate sweat gallons with work.
I hope you get the picture.
As part of her social responsibility programme Scrutator is now planning to hire only lawyers for any job she can think of.
She wants a head boy for her mother in Qacha’s Nek … a law degree is a requirement.
There will also be an opening for the position of a maid and a gardener at Scrutator’s home but applicants must have a law degree from NUL if they want to be considered.
Scrutator is only doing her part to assist hungry lawyers.
You too can play your part in this noble cause.
Remember a Lesotho lawyer’s time and knowledge gathered over five years of toiling at NUL only costs 5kgs of maize-meal per month.
By the way, Scrutator is also planning to hire a lawyer to sue all those men who look at her curvaceous behind with lust.
If you want to understand that a lawyer is cheap in Maseru you only need to look no further than the current dispute between Ishmael Monare and Moeketsi ‘Chaltin’ Tsatsanyane over that shell of a company called Lesotho Public Motor Transport Company (LPMTC).
Two grown and bearded men have hired lawyers to fight for LPMTC, a company whose monthly turnover is barely worth a few hundreds of maloti.
In their affidavits the men exude shocking pettiness and each week they are filling court applications like they are high on something more potent than matekoane.
“He had at one point in time insulted one Ganchi Javed our tenant fighting for having denied him the use of a toilet after he had left it splattered and unflushed,” says Tsatsanyane in one of his affidavits.
Phew!
Have our courts become so under-utilised that they are now required to adjudicate on people’s toilet manners?
And what does the matter at hand have to do with Monare’s toilet manners?
Unless, of course, Tsatsanyane’s gripe is that Monare scared other board members after he attended a board meeting without “wiping”.
But having said that, Scrutator would like to say she does not condone people who leave the toilet “splattered and unflushed”.
Rumour has it that parliament might be having similar mishaps with its toilets but you didn’t hear that from Scrutator.
She will deny it with her life.
Scrutator would like to congratulate Maseru businessman, Tumo Tlelai, on his first day in prison.
The hotelier was sentenced to 30 days “under lock and key” at Maseru Central prison for contempt of court.
Scrutator hears that after the judgment Tlelai’s lawyer tried to approach Justice Maseforo Mahase in her private chambers but the door was literally banged in his face.
Or was he shown the door before he could say “Your Honour”?
Good for him.
Scrutator would like to know from Tlelai, when he comes out, how the food in jail tasted.
How does it compare to the buffet at Victoria and Lakeside?
Mong’aka, do they have single or double rooms at Maseru Central Prison?
Do they offer presidential suites at that “hotel”?
Scrutator hopes those 30 days will be accompanied with hard labour for the businessman.
Apart from helping him reform, hard labour will make him understand how most of the workers in the hotel industry feel when they toil day and night for peanuts.
Speaking of peanuts, did anyone notice how the civil servants’ strike was getting dirtier last week across our border?
The verbal volleys were now being targeted at President Jacob Zuma.
I felt for the man from Mkandla.
“Give R700 to your two wives,” read one poster.
Cosatu spokesman Patrick Craven was forced to make a groveling apology to Zuma over the personal attacks.
But the message had reached home.
The workers are not blind and they know why all the first ladies in that country tip the scale at 120kg or more.
It’s lijo li monate.
