Africa-Press – Lesotho. Action for Peace and Solidarity (APS) has condemned the Judge Dikgang Moseneke-led facilitation team’s decision to encourage the government to free jailed suspects in Lieutenant-General Maaparankoe Mahao’s murder case and others in similar crimes as a way of finding alternative justice.
ACP is a justice and human rights association formed by peers and comrades of Lt. Gen Mahao who was brutally slain in 2015. In a statement APS said the decision is implied in the terms of establishing a Transitional Justice Commission which (TJC) has the customary functions of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
“We have since learned that despite the universally known principle that alternative justice that avoids prosecution of suspects can only happen by consent of the sufferers and the affected, the government is proceeding in full haste to develop a law for a typical TRC under the pretense of this model without consulting the victims’ families,” the statement read.
APS said the families of the victims have unambiguously told Judge Moseneke that they are against the release of the suspects. They said both joint and individual actions of Judge Moseneke and the government of Lesotho are overreaching and unilateral.
therefore in contravention of the agreed principles of the National Reforms which require under a statute of parliament that the Reforms be implemented by an institution in shape with the National Reforms Authority (NRA), and that they be transparent and inclusive,” APS said in their statement.
APS has further appealed to Judge Moseneke and leaders of government to stay within the narrow confines of the frameworks created by the national consensus for the National Reforms.
They have also invited other role bearers in this case to assist in order to avoid more actions that might set back the many efforts to that have been done at this point.
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