Moetapele oa Dc o kenakenane le makhotla!!! The Constitutional Court on Friday reserved judgment in a case in which Justice ’Maseforo Mahase is suing the former prime minister over a report on the April 2009 mercenary attack on the State House and Makoanyane Military Barracks. The report was the result of a commission of inquiry chaired by retired Court of Appeal President Jan Steyn to investigate circumstances surrounding the events of April 22, 2009. The then Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili set up the commission after a group of mercenaries slithered into Lesotho, attacked the State House and Makoanyane Military Barracks in an attempted coup. The plan to abduct the prime minister and topple the government was however foiled by security forces after gun battles that left four of the mercenaries dead. Mosisili presented the commission’s report in parliament in April 2010. Justice Mahase took exception to sections of the report that questioned a judgment she made in a 2007 case that involved Makotoko Lerotholi, who is alleged to have been the brains behind the 2009 attacks. Lerotholi and four others had been detained for allegedly attacking ministers’ homes in the aftermath of the 2007 election. Justice Mahase ordered their release after the crown failed to charge them. The Justice Steyn report criticised Justice Mahase’s judgment. The report said Justice Mahase had released the accused in “circumstances that can only be described as unusual”. It said the procedure used to release the suspects was “flawed” and the judge had relied on an “incomplete record”. Justice Mahase, the report noted, did not give the police or army a chance to justify why Lerotholi and his co- accused should continue to be held in custody. It further insinuated that had Lerotholi not been released by Justice Mahase, he would not have fled to South Africa from where he launched the April 22 attacks with the help of mercenaries from Mozambique and South Africa. Justice Mahase felt those comments constituted an attack on her integrity and the High Court. She then approached the Constitutional Court seeking an order to compel the prime minister to have the sections removed from the report. In her affidavit the judge said the commission of inquiry had no right to review her judgment. She also pointed out that Mosisili should have not presented the report to parliament without first removing the sections that cast aspersions on her integrity as a judge. She said if the prime minister was not happy with the way she had handled the Lerotholi case he could have used the Attorney General and Director of Public Prosecutions to take the matter for review or appeal.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 08:07:48 +0000