Lesotho’s government and civil society clash over constitutional reform efforts introduced by Law and Justice Minister Richard Ramoeletsi.(Government of Lesotho)
Lesotho’s government is again seeking to amend its constitution, in a process started after the 2014 coup attempts.But the country needs an entirely new constitution, a civil society group argues.The government hopes opposition support in parliament will allow the long-awaited reforms to make it into law this time.
Lesotho is again working on key constitutional reforms, seeking to bring order to the mountain kingdom’s fractious politics, but there’s a new hurdle: the government and part of civil society disagree on how to go about it.
Last week, Law and Justice Minister Richard Ramoeletsi introduced the long-awaited Tenth Amendment to the Constitution Bill and the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution Bill that the government of then Prime Minister Moeketsi Majoro failed to pass ahead of 2022 elections.
But while the government wants to amend the existing constitution, some civil society organisations want to write a new one.
The Transformation Resource Centre (TRC), a legal civic group, accused the government of “continued misdirection against sound counsel and advisory to its political leadership on astute principles of engagement in constitutionally legitimate reform procedures” because the Bills were “dismemberments of the constitution’s original design”.
The TRC said the government had not learnt from its past mistakes and that “flaws and mishaps have resulted in a litany of litigated cases and structural pushbacks”.
Lesotho cannot afford incremental changes to its constitution, the TRC argues.
The government will require opposition support to pass its legislation, and that has previously proven difficult to achieve.
On that, Ramoeletsi told journalists:
I can’t say I am confident, but I believe everyone who is elected as a member of parliament will do their responsibility to respond to the needs of the nation because this Bill is going to facilitate the processes in the future to ensure public service delivery.
He added that the passage of the Bills was important so that it would become “easy for the government to govern because, without proper legal documents, it is always difficult to do so.”
Context for reforms
Lesotho became a crisis spot in the SADC region in 2014 when, under Prime Minister Tom Thabane, there were two coup attempts.
On the last attempt, he fled to South Africa, leaving the country under the care of his deputy, Mothetjoa Metsing.
Hard-pressed to maintain peace in the region, SADC pushed for early elections in Lesotho, slated for February 2015.
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Under the guidance of South Africa, Lesotho was to come up with a roadmap known as “The Lesotho We Want”.
This project, spearheaded by the National Reforms Authority (NRA), provided a table for Basotho to participate in the kingdom’s change through persistent public discussions about reforms, national healing, reconciliation, and hope restorations.
It was through this process that the constitutional amendments were suggested.
The News24 Africa Desk is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation. The stories produced through the Africa Desk and the opinions and statements that may be contained herein do not reflect those of the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
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Publish date : 2024-05-13 07:00:00
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