Imagine the following ghastly scenario. Ntate Sam (the Prime Minister) and his fellow coalition travellers decide they want to fire our hard working and indefatigable Chief Justice Sakoane Sakoane because he is passing judgments they don’t like. Imagine Ntate Sakoane’s old peer, former Chief Justice and now Deputy Prime Minister Nthomeng Majara, asking him to rule in favour of so and so (just as she – as per own admission – asked DPP Motinyane to not prosecute her coalition’s allies – aka Methotjoa Metsing and others). Because he is a principled man, Justice Sakoane flatly refuses. Doing so not only goes against his individual clean conscience – he argues, it also violates his constitutional oath which requires him to dispense justice to all and sundry without fear, favour or prejudice (just as Mme Motinyane argued when asked by Mme Majara to let Ntate Metsing off the hook).
Ntate Sam and his coalition acolytes decide to hound Ntate Sakoane out of office in lieu of his refusal to take political instructions. They inform him of their decision. They institute impeachment proceedings against him.
He argues that the impeachment is vacuous and vindictive (just as Mme Motinyane has done). He exercises his constitutional prerogative to challenge it in the courts. He refuses to go.
While that legal process is playing out, Ntate Sam decides to put the Chief Justice on a so-called precautionary suspension. Ntate Sakoane rightly refuses to go again because Ntate Sam has no authority to unilaterally suspend a Chief Justice. Ntate Sam decides he will do it anyway.
Under the cover of darkness, he dispatches a truckload of police officers to change the locks at Ntate Sakoane’s office. The Chief Justice reports to work the next day to deliver his eloquent judgments – as has become his norm – only to find his doors vandalized and him locked out. Not only that. Ntate Sam further orders the withdrawal of the Chief Justice’s bodyguards despite purporting to have suspended him on full benefits. The Prime Minister dispatches a truckload of soldiers to Ntate Sakoane’s official house to evict him as well. The Chief Justice’s young children and wife are traumatized by the violence and decide to jump the border to Ladybrand or Ficksburg.
The Law Society – the repository of legal knowledge – counsels Ntate Sam that what he is doing is the stuff of Animal Farm not a democratic society based on the rule of law. It ultimatums the Prime Minister and his cohorts to change course. They refuse, despite fully knowing that what they are doing is wrong. Left with no option to access his office, the Chief Justice asks for permission to only be allowed to retrieve his briefcase. He then reluctantly retreats to his official home to find it shut as well. He then skips the border to join his family in Ficksburg.
Far away in the United States, this information reaches one Donald Trump, who not so long ago, berated Lesotho as a place of squalor that “nobody has ever heard of” and where strange, ghastly things are always happening. His Secretary of State Marco Rubio – whispers into the US President’s ear:
“You were right after all Mr President. Strange things happen in that little place. Just imagine. They have fired a whole Chief Justice without following due process simply because he refused to toe the political line……..Why should we bother about such a small wretched place…Let’s keep their tariffs at 50 percent to just keep them away…”
Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick walks into the White House and joins in the laugh.
“Imagine, they sent a guy by the name of Mokhethi Shelile who has been trying to talk to me for months to get a favourable deal away from the 50 percent tariff rate…..I have ignored the guy Mr President…He has been here in Washington for eight weeks and he will still not go home….We cannot talk to a government that fires a Chief Justice simply because he has passed judgments they don’t like…. Jamieson Greer even let this Shelile guy travel to Pretoria to only see his shadow… Greer had already left (laughter all around). Let’s continue showing contempt for this little Kingdom. It’s not worth it for us when they so brazenly trash democracy…”
Trump retorts, “Okay guys, let’s move on to some more serious issues….Netanyahu is on his way….And our bombing campaign of the Mullahs in Iran has just been completed. We need to review how it all went…(more laughter)…..”
Of course, this would all make a very good script for a Hollywood tragi-comedy. Except that this is no laughing matter. It’s no comedy. It’s real. It’s happening in Lesotho. The subject matter is not Ntate Sakoane, for now. But if they succeed with Mme Motinyane, who knows. Ntate Sakoane could himself be next because he has proved to be fiercely independent? Then it could be Mosito? Then who else? Only God knows.
While it is common cause that Ntate Sakoane has no regard for Mme Motinyane, he still must not let this charade succeed. Because after her, it could be him. We already have a bad precedent of Ntate Mosito. When Ntate Mosisili returned to power, he showed no decorum. Instead of celebrating that our indigenous white man had excelled to the pinnacle of the legal profession, Ntate Mosisili set about trying to decapitate Ntate Mosito. While it was bad enough that a man who sits in judgment of all and sundry had not bothered to file tax returns, Scrutator was never convinced that this alone was the real reason of Ntate Mosisili’s viciousness against Ntate Mosito. To his credit, Ntate Mosisili did not replace Ntate Mosito with a party apparatchik. He bought a real white man from South Africa (his name eludes me now) with a good reputation on that country’s bench. Still the process had been diabolical. And when Ntate Motsoahae returned, he brought back Ntate Mosito and dispensed with that foreign white man (I think the name was Nugent). When after his return, Ntate Mosito started ruling continuously in favour of his suspected bosom buddy (Nqosa Mahao) in the chaotic ABC leadership squabbles, Ntate Motsoahae tried to turn back on his ally. The tragi-comedy was at play again. This time, Ntate Motsoahae did not succeed. It was Ntate Motsoahae who subsequently fell on his sword.
There is something tragic about a country that does not show respect for its public constitutional offices. The reason why these offices are constitutionally protected is because of their centrality to the promotion of the democratic project.
Scrutator holds no brief for the diminutive Motinyane. In fact, if there are a lot of things she can do better in her office. And if she has committed any of the crimes alleged by Ntate Sam and his fellow travellers, then she must explain herself before a properly constituted tribunal. The only problem for now is that the whole bid to impeach her smacks of petty vindictiveness.
By Mme Nthomeng’s own admission (as per court papers) she indeed asked Mme Motinyane to drop all charges against her bosom buddy (one Methotjoa Metsing). That was crass. It was crude. It was all wrong. The DPP must never take political instructions. She was right to rebuff Mme Nthomeng.
One Knorx Molelle fell on his sword for labelling this admission by Mme Nthomeng “idiotic”.
The reason why I wrote at that time that Ntate Knorx had gone over the top in his insults of his political bosses was because when politicians tell the truth – especially in a country like ours where honest politicians are as rare as rare earth minerals – they surely should not be excoriated for that. By admitting that she indeed tried to influence the DPP, Mme Nthomeng had done the right thing.
I had hoped this impeachment thing would end with that admission. It no longer made sense for Ntate Sam and Co to proceed with the impeachment in light of that admission. If they did, they would be merely confirming the vindictiveness underpinning their unlawful actions.
If they did, they would effectively confirm Ntate Knorx’s charge that they were not properly wired in the skulls. How else can any government be so brazen to admit that it asked a DPP to drop charges against a suspected criminal – already in court – and after she rightfully refused – as per her constitutional calling – they then tried to impeach her. Even the most moronic peasant residing under a rock in a remote village in Qacha will see the brazenness and the crudeness. That’s not what democracy demands. When you botch a process without achieving a desired result, the best thing is to take a deep breath, relax and wait for the next opportunity to resume the process and then try to get the result.
The coalition government could have done itself a huge favour if it had waited on Mme Motinyane’s next mistake and then pounced. By now proceeding with the impeachment after admitting an illegal act (that ‘M’e Nthomeng asked her to drop charges against her friend), Ntate Sam’s coalition cut its own throat. Ntate Knorx might as well be feeling vindicated. Who can blame him.
Kudos to the regularly comatose Law Society for standing up for what is right. The constitution is clear on how a DPP should be removed from office. A Prime Minister cannot simply wake up and decide to suspend a DPP. It’s probably frustrating for the government that Mme Motinyane has resorted to her own version of Stalingrad tactics to thwart her impeachment.
Ntate Sam and allies had no option however. They just had to wait for the legal processes to play themselves out. After all, that is what democracy demands. Follow the rules. They are now stuck in a battle they will probably not win, especially at the apex court. Ntate Mosito knows the pain of being hounded out of office. This will be an opportunity for him to put politicians in their place. To show them that the constitutional safeguards to protect public officer bearers were not put in for decoration only. They must be respected.
This is not to say DPP Motinyane is the best thing to have ever happened to Lesotho since sliced bread (for those who can actually afford the bread). There are many things wrong with her office. I have often spoken out against her office’s cavalier attitude in letting of murderers, robbers and rapists on easy bail terms. Many of them never to return to court. Yet I remain unconvinced that the DPP is the cause of the paralysis in the criminal justice cluster. The DPP is at worst a mere microcosm of a larger problem in a dysfunctional criminal justice system of a dysfunctional Kingdom. The rot starts with a wretched, inept and corrupt police force, before extending to the DPP and the judiciary itself. It’s a systemic issue not to be blamed on one pint-sized young woman. Let’s never forget Ntate Matela Matobakele’s prophetic words that the LMPS has for long been a tragic joke. For a whole leader of a country’s army to state such publicly is no small matter. Instead of firing one Holomo Molibeli – perhaps the most useless policeman to ever donned that blue uniform – and prove they were serious about reforming the LMPS after taking over in October 2022, the RFP coalition instead let Molibeli see through his contract. Meanwhile under Molibeli’s watch, crime spiralled out of control. They ultimately handed over a poisoned chalice to Ntate Matsoso. Let’s see how far he will go. It is trite that in any civilized society an effective criminal justice system begins with an effective police force able to probe and produce viable (prosecutable) dockets. The same could never have been said of Molibeli who presided over the most corrupt period in the history of the LMPS. It’s fitting that a country of only two million souls earned the moniker of number six in the world’s homicidal stakes under Molibeli. To now try and lay all the blame for a dysfuntional criminal justice system on a diminutive hardworking woman is simply disingenuous. In fact by going after the Metsings of this world, Mme Motinyane had proved her mettle. She is the only African prosecutions head to ever charge a sitting President or Prime Minister (aka Motsoahae). On my ranking, she is the best DPP Lesotho has ever had, her many other failures notwithstanding.
Ntate Sam decided to leave his billions in business and enmesh himself in the rough and tumble of politics partly because – in his own words – Lesotho was on the throes of becoming a failed state – a virtual banana republic. Sadly – and very sadly – when a government sees it fit to hound a constitutional office holder out of office in the deplorable style in which ‘M’e Motinyane’s case is being handled. When a government of a republic sees it fit to send a truckload of police officers to arrest a low type politician of Ntate Tsepo Lipholo’s calibre, not to even mention arresting a comedian like Tjekatjeka for merely complaining that promised jobs are not materializing fast enough, then that Republic (in our case Kingdom) is well on its way to becoming a banana. Ntate Sam had promised the exact opposite (to stop us from slipping away into a precipice on top of the banana peel). If I were him, I would spend my time creating those 70 000 jobs he promised to youths only a while ago than besmirching myself by arresting the likes of Lipholo and Tjekatjeka and bastardizing the office of a hardworking woman like Mme Motinyane.
Ache!!!
