{"id":3265,"date":"2021-09-14T10:34:08","date_gmt":"2021-09-14T10:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/treason-case-fails-to-kick-off"},"modified":"2021-09-14T10:34:08","modified_gmt":"2021-09-14T10:34:08","slug":"treason-case-fails-to-kick-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/treason-case-fails-to-kick-off","title":{"rendered":"Treason case fails to kick off"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\">Lesotho<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>The treason case in which the High Court was to hear the arguments on the joinder of Hon. Mothetjoa Metsing and Hon. Selibe Mochoboroane was put on ice indefinitely yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>This is due to the absence of the presiding judge, Justice Onkemetse Tshosa on Monday this week. Both the prosecution team and the defence team told Informative Newspaper that the new<\/p>\n<p>date for the case will be set on July 23rd. The case was scheduled to be heard this last Friday but could not continue as the High Court premises were being decontaminated following the case of COVID-19 which has been<\/p>\n<p>discovered in the courts. The crown and the defence lawyers will present their arguments on Tuesday this week and if the Messrs Metsing and Mochoboroane will join the former Lesotho Defence Force (LDF) Commander<\/p>\n<p>Lieutenant General Tlali Kamoli and eight other soldiers who are up for treason charges. These soldiers have been kept in custody since 2017. They are also facing<\/p>\n<p>the murder charges of former Lesotho Defence Force (LDF) Commander Lieutenant General Maapanakoe Mahao who was allegedly killed by the soldiers near Mokema<\/p>\n<p>in June 25, 2015. The Constitutional Division of the High Court had in November last year declined to grant Mochoboroane and Metsing rescission and also declared the controversial Clause<\/p>\n<p>10 which says \u201cMr.<\/p>\n<p>[Mothetjoa] Metsing and similarly placed persons will not be<\/p>\n<p>subjected to any pending criminal proceedings during the dialogue and reform process\u201d as unconstitutional\u201d. The Constitutional Court held that: \u201c\u2026 it would be<\/p>\n<p>legally justifiable to arrive at a conclusion that Clause 10 of the MOU, remains unconstitutional. However, we remain convinced that the sprit in the MOU appears to be a constructive way<\/p>\n<p>forward paving towards national healing, reconciliation and unity. We reiterate our earlier position that the problem is intrinsically political and needs a political solution rather than a<\/p>\n<p>legalistic one. \u201d The Chief Justice, His Lordship Sakoane Sakoane had earlier this year referred the duo application, wherein they had petitioned the court to interdict the Director of Public<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutions (DPP) from trying them. \u201cTo the extent that the DPP is actively seeking to prevent the applicants from meaningfully exercises (sic) their right of appeal by vexatiously instituting challenged<\/p>\n<p>criminal proceedings, the propriety at which action depends upon the determination of the appeals, the DPP is committing an abuse of court process, which should not be counter balanced.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe abuse of court process committed by the DPP is manifested in a related but different context<\/p>\n<p>in these proceedings. She agreed to refrain from exercising her powers to institute the proceedings against the applicants pending the outcome of the decision by Constitutional Court on clause 10, which dictated the deferral of<\/p>\n<p>prosecution against them,\u201d reads their court application. Also, during its April session, the two politicians lost the bid in which they had challenged the High Court\u2019s resistance from<\/p>\n<p>hearing their case and referring it to the trial Judge, failed to convince the Court of Appeal as in its recent judgement it had dismissed their two cases<\/p>\n<p>wherein in another case they wanted the rescission of judgment relating to unconstitutionality of the Clause 10 and challenging their joinder, the court<\/p>\n<p>had dismissed their cases with costs and the other one strucking it off the roll. In its May 14 verdict, the higher court of record said: \u201cThe Lesotho courts already are under severe<\/p>\n<p>pressure due to congested court rolls. There is a need to stem unwarranted proliferation of litigation involving the same parties based on the same issues<\/p>\n<p>related to the same subject matter. \u201d Meanwhile, the government has recently tabled the peace, unity bill. There has been a furore recently sparked by the controversial National Peace and Unity Bill, 2021 which<\/p>\n<p>has been tabled in the National Assembly by the Minister of Justice and Law Advocate Lekhetho Rakuaoane. The bill is a precursor to the National Peace and Unity Commission, which could pardon those<\/p>\n<p>alleged to have perpetrated human rights violations and crimes committed by politicians on account that they appear before the Commission and tell the<\/p>\n<p>truths of what happened. The members of the Commission will be appointed by the Prime Minister acting upon recommendations from the selection panel. It will be formed of the Chairperson,<\/p>\n<p>Vice-Chairperson, one Commissioner and the prosecuting officer who is trained in law. This bill is \u201can act to make provision for the establishment of a National Peace and Unity<\/p>\n<p>Commission for the purpose of building sustainable national peace, security, stability, unity and social cohesion by creating an opportunity for both victims and perpetrators of gross human rights violations to reach healing and<\/p>\n<p>reconciliation; the empowerment of the Commission to hear evidence in a comprehensive manner to determine the truth about gross violations of human rights emanating from acts, omissions or offences associated with political<\/p>\n<p>conflicts or motives committed in Lesotho; to grant reparations to victims and amnesty to persons who make full disclosure of all relevant information of<\/p>\n<p>their wrong doings; and for related matters. \u201d Meanwhile the public opinions contained in the Multi-stakeholder National Dialogue Plenary II Report talks of the establishment of \u201can all-encompassing Transitional Justice<\/p>\n<p>Commission (TJC)\u201d which is believed to be \u201csuitable to Lesotho\u2019s context to address incidents of human rights violations and injustices, with a focus on<\/p>\n<p>reconciliation, peacebuilding, reparation, compensation without compromising justice and impunity, to address all things that have turned Basotho nation against each other\u201d. The TJC is to be \u201ca balance between amnesty and prosecution\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. The treason case in which the High Court was to hear the arguments on the joinder of Hon. Mothetjoa Metsing and Hon. Selibe Mochoboroane was put on ice indefinitely yesterday. This is due to the absence of the presiding judge, Justice Onkemetse Tshosa on Monday this week. Both the prosecution team and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":3264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,8,16],"tags":[233,246,245,527,528],"class_list":["post-3265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","category-homepage-english","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-lesotho","tag-lieutenant","tag-treason"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Treason case fails to kick off - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/treason-case-fails-to-kick-off\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Treason case fails to kick off\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. The treason case in which the High Court was to hear the arguments on the joinder of Hon. Mothetjoa Metsing and Hon. Selibe Mochoboroane was put on ice indefinitely yesterday. This is due to the absence of the presiding judge, Justice Onkemetse Tshosa on Monday this week. Both the prosecution team and [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/treason-case-fails-to-kick-off\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesotho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-09-14T10:34:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2021\/09\/img-61407f765fcf8.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"540\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/treason-case-fails-to-kick-off#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/treason-case-fails-to-kick-off\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Treason case fails to kick off\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-09-14T10:34:08+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/treason-case-fails-to-kick-off\"},\"wordCount\":908,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/treason-case-fails-to-kick-off#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2021\/09\/img-61407f765fcf8.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Lesotho\",\"Lesotho\",\"Lieutenant\",\"Treason\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"community\",\"homepage-english\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/treason-case-fails-to-kick-off#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/treason-case-fails-to-kick-off\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/treason-case-fails-to-kick-off\",\"name\":\"Treason case fails to kick off - 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