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COUP D’ETAT IN LESOTHO!

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MBABANE – Lesotho Prime Minister Thomas Thabane is in hiding in South Africa after an unexpected coup in the mountainous kingdom.


In Swaziland, Thabane made headlines when, in 2013, he asked Chief Justice (CJ) Michael Ramodibedi to resign from his position as President of the Lesotho Court of Appeal.
Ramodibedi is a citizen of Lesotho but has been Chief Justice in Swaziland since the year 2010.
He first acted as CJ after Richard Banda, who was from Malawi, became indisposed.


Speaking to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) yesterday, the deeply distressed Thabane said he would return from South Africa, which surrounds Lesotho, as soon as he knew he was not going to get killed.
Reports say the capital, Maseru, was by midday yesterday calm after soldiers seized buildings on Friday night.
The army, however, denied staging a coup. Lesotho has seen a series of military coups since independence in 1966. Thabane has headed a unity government since then but suspended Parliament sessions in June amid feuding in his coalition.


He denied accusations that his actions had undermined his government. Today, the Times SUNDAY carries the story of the uncertainty in Lesotho on pages 16 and 17.
It is a matter of public record that Thabane and Ramodibedi are not the best of friends.


The background of the matter is that Prime Minister Thabane, during a pre-arranged meeting of April 22, 2013, reportedly asked Ramodibedi to resign as president of the Court of Appeal.
Justice Ramodibedi later claimed that the prime minister and Lesotho Chief Justice Lehohla accused him of being ‘responsible for the mess in the Judiciary’.
However, Ramodibedi turned down Thabane’s request and referred him to the Constitution, which he said did not give the PM power to have him fired.
Ramodibedi had also been accused of allegedly abusing public funds, something that he vehemently denied.


He had also denied being responsible for any alleged mess or crisis in the Lesotho Judiciary.
He had also defended his appointment into two senior positions in Swaziland and Lesotho by saying it was not inconsistent with the Constitutions or any other law in the two countries.
Ramodibedi argued that the proposed appointment of a tribunal to impeach him was only intended to tarnish his image.


The Lesotho Appeal Court judges had posited that Ramodibedi’s reputation and public image were already tarnished before the tribunal was appointed by King Letsie III.
 “The upshot of all this, as I see it, is that the appellant’s reputation was already tarnished before the request for the appointment of a tribunal by the prime minister.
“On the face of it, it seems to me that the only way to salvage his reputation is for the appellant to successfully refute the allegations before the tribunal,” read part of the judgement. However, a few weeks after this ruling against his application, Ramodibedi resigned from his position as president of the Lesotho Court of Appeal.


Ramodibedi, who has for some years concurrently held the position of CJ of Swaziland and President of Lesotho’s highest court, was then a few weeks away from facing an impeachment tribunal.
Charges against him included alleged insurance fraud. A number of the charges also related to his actions in Swaziland. Following the Appeal Court’s ruling against Ramodibedi, it had appeared that there were no further obstacles to the sitting of the tribunal.


According to justice sources in Lesotho, the tribunal, consisting of three retired South African judges, could have begun its work as early as May.
Then, Ramodibedi’s representative in Lesotho, Salemane Phafane, came out to say, “He has already resigned, by letter, dated April 22.”
A legal adviser to Lesotho Prime Minister Thabane had said then, that the letter of resignation had not yet been forwarded by the office of the king to the PM.
Until the prime minister had seen the letter, no decisions could be taken. Among the questions that needed to be answered was whether the king could refuse to accept the resignation, and if the impeachment ­tribunal would continue after Ramodibedi had resigned.


According to the allegations for which he was to be impeached, Ramodibedi instructed his driver, a member of the security forces, to say that he had been driving Ramodibedi’s official vehicle at the time of an accident.
On the strength of the driver’s statement, the insurance company allegedly paid out almost E500 000 for repairs, while Lesotho’s Government paid the excess.


The company alleged, however, that it subsequently discovered that Ramodibedi’s son had actually been driving the vehicle at the time of the accident, without authority to do so. The impeachment charges had detailed a number of other allegations of impropriety allegedly committed in Lesotho and Swaziland.


Ramodibedi had approached the Lesotho courts to stop a high powered tribunal appointed by Lesotho King Letsie III, which sought to enquire whether he (Swazi CJ) should be removed from his position as President of the Lesotho Court of Appeal - for inability or misbehaviour. The CJ claimed in his appeal that he was being treated unfairly by PM Thabane, in particular, because he was not given fair representation prior to the appointment of the tribunal.


Ramodibedi had argued that he was not formally invited by the prime minister to make representations as to why the request for the appointment of a tribunal should not be made.
Acting Appeal Court Judges FDJ Brand, A Cachalia, FR Malan, WJ Louw and RB Cleaver all concurred in dismissing the appeal by Ramodibedi.
The appeal judges described Ramodibedi’s marathon appeal case as an ‘uncommon event’.


They concurred that the appointment of the tribunal was merely a preliminary step, which had no adverse effect on any of Justice Ramodibedi’s rights.
In fact, the court ruled that the appointment of the tribunal was in the best interest of the judge president as he would be afforded the opportunity to argue the allegations levelled against him.
“It must firstly be borne in mind that inherent to the impugned decision is the fact that it is a preliminary step aimed at causing an enquiry by an independent body, where the appellant shall be afforded ample opportunity to refute the allegations against him.


“This means that the prime minister’s decision has no immediate effect on the appellant’s tenure as president of the Court of Appeal.
“Nor could it in this case have led to the appellant’s suspension without him being heard since he was expressly invited to make representations as to why he should not be suspended.
“The potentially adverse effect of the decision was, therefore, limited to the appellant’s reputation only.


“In this regard, the adverse effect to the appellant’s reputation shall, in the event of the tribunal finding the allegations against him to be unimpeachable, in all likelihood, not be permanent,” read part of the judgment. The court had further posited that the contention that the appointment of the tribunal affected the appellant’s right to his reputation and dignity was ‘plainly without merit’.


“In all the circumstances of the case I am, therefore, not persuaded that the prime minister’s failure to afford the appellant a hearing, in the strict sense before requesting the king to appoint a tribunal, was unfair.
“Conversely stated, in the view that I hold, insistence on strict compliance with the audi principle in all its ramifications would in the circumstances of this case have been overly burdensome on the prime minister, undermined the administration of justice and unhelpful to the appellant. “It follows that in my view the appeal against the High Court’s dismissal of the appellant’s application cannot be sustained,” read part of the judgment. The appeal was dismissed with no order as to costs.

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