FORMER CHIEF JUSTICE RAMODIBEDI DIES

MBABANE - Critics who dared raise a finger would be threatened with contempt of court.  This is how one can describe the country’s former Chief Justice, Michael Mathealira Ramobibedi, who has died at the age of 74.

Ramodibedi, who referred to himself as Makhulu Baas, was relieved of his duties as the country’s chief justice by His Majesty King Mswati III on June 17, 2015 for gross misconduct.

The Lesotho national, according to his wife Janet, succumbed to an undisclosed illness yesterday morning while being admitted to a hospital in the Republic of South Africa.

“Yah, it is true that he passed away this morning,” said Janet when called yesterday.
When asked on the real cause of her husband’s death, Janet said: “It is too early for that.”

Retired

She said after leaving the Kingdom of Eswatini, her husband was no longer employed, saying he was retired. Janet had been asked if her husband got employment after leaving Eswatini.
After the confirmation of Ramodibedi’s death by his wife yesterday, a man who claimed to be his son-in-law called the newsroom and asked that they be given time to mourn as a family.

“Can you please respect us until the burial as, currently, we are still devastated,” said the infuriated son-in-law who however, refused to give his name.
Ramodibedi, who was born on April 24, 1945, was a jurist from Lesotho who had served in the courts of several Commonwealth countries in Africa and he was a graduate of the University of Botswana, Lesotho, and Eswatini.

He began his law career in Lesotho, and would later go on to hold positions on the bench there as well as in Seychelles and Botswana. He was the chief Justice of Eswatini until June 17, 2015, when he was fired by King Mswati III for gross misconduct.

During his tenure as CJ in the Kingdom of Eswatini, the Judiciary was marred by controversy such that in May 2011, lawyers in the country boycotted courts calling for his removal.  He also had a run-in with the late former Prime Minister Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini, who once stopped his trip to Geneva, Switzerland, at the eleventh hour.  It was supposed to be undertaken from October 13 to 19, 2014. He was due to travel with his wife.

Cancelled

The couple had already secured a travel visa from the Swiss Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, when the trip was cancelled. The former CJ was going overseas to attend a conference for chief justices from Commonwealth countries.

Justice Ramodibedi was appointed acting judge of the Appeal Court (now Supreme Court) of the Kingdom of Eswatini in 2006, and assumed the position of acting chief justice in 2010. He was confirmed to the position in 2011 and re-appointed indefinitely in 2012.

At the same time, Justice Ramodibedi was Lesotho’s Court of Appeal president, a position he assumed in 2008 and relinquished in April 2014 after losing a court case against his impeachment for possible abuse of office by then Lesotho Prime Minister, Thomas Thabane.

Clashes

While at the helm of the Judiciary of Eswatini, Justice Ramodibedi had numerous clashes with the Law Society of Swaziland (LSS) and the local media over the way he oversaw the country’s Judiciary.

However, on April 17, 2015, the High Court of Eswatini issued a warrant for his arrest, on charges related to abuse of office. But instead of surrendering to the relevant authorities, Justice Ramodibedi locked himself in his allocated house at the judges’ complex situated at Dalriach for 37 days from the date the arrest warrant was issued. He argued he was immune to prosecution because of the position he held.

After exhausting all avenues to make the judge leave his mansion, government decided to suspend the arrest warrant and ordered him to appear before a special Judicial Service Commission (JSC) committee, which started on May 25, 2015.

He could, however, not attend the full hearing citing ill-health, but the JSC still went ahead with the trial with Justice Ramodibedi’s lawyer in attendance.
Justice Ramodibedi, however, tried to block the JSC’s findings from reaching King Mswati III, but his application was dismissed on June 12, 2015 by the High Court.

On June 17, 2015, King Mswati III sacked Justice Ramodibedi, but dropped all the charges he was facing. The judge was then allowed to leave the Kingdom of Eswatini.

During the last interview he had with the Times of Swaziland after his dismissal, Ramodibedi was quoted as having said it was not over.
In the interview, he claimed that there were a lot of ‘fraudulent’ acts that occurred in the processes that led to his dismissal.
He claimed that government flouted certain provisions of the Constitution.

Lesotho Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Relations Tlohang Sekhamane was quoted by that country’s media as having said the decision to allow Justice Ramodibedi to leave Eswatini  without being charged came after ‘cordial’ talks and correspondence between King Letsie III and King Mswati III.

Communication

Sekhamane told the Sunday Express: “As much as I will not go into details of the letter that His Majesty King Letsie III wrote to His Majesty King Mswati III, the fact of the matter is that Justice Ramodibedi’s coming to Lesotho was a result of that cordial communication.

In other words, despite all the sensational headlines about Judge Ramodibedi having been fired in the Kingdom of Eswatini, it is worth mentioning that, actually, this has been a soft landing for that powerful Mosotho judge who, despite this saga, has made us proud by flying the Lesotho flag high with his legal practice experience abroad.”

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