DIRECTOR of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Hlalefang Motinyane, is sticking to her guns.
She has insisted the government wants to oust her from her plum post because she rejected illegal instructions from Deputy Prime Minister Nthomeng Majara to drop treason and murder charges against its political allies.
Mr Matekane's government, which took office in October 2022, has launched a bid to oust DPP Motinyane from office, accusing her of gross incompetence. It had served her with a show cause letter why an impeachment tribunal should not be appointed to probe her fitness to remain in office.
However, DPP Motinyane spurned the move and has since filed a Constitutional Court application seeking an order to bar her removal.
She claims she is being victimised for safeguarding the independence of her office after she rejected directives to drop treason and murder charges against Health Minister and Movement for Economic Change boss Selibe Mochoboroane and Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) leader Mothetjoa Metsing who are both Mr Matekane's political allies.
In answering to DPP Motinyane's original affidavit Attorney General Rapelang Motsieloa KC last month cited several reasons why the government was plotting to send DPP Motinyane packing.
He alleged that DPP Motinyane was incompetent and had always been even before she was elevated to her current position.
However, in her replying affidavit filed on Monday this week, DPP Motinyane insisted that the plot to get her out of office had nothing to do with her performance. Rather, it was simply because she had refused to discharge Messrs Metsing and Mochoboroane in their high profile murder and treason trial and that had shaken the pillars of government.
She insists that Deputy Prime Minister Majara, had instructed her to quash all the charges against the duo. They had fallen out after she refused to comply.
AG Motsieloa had asserted that DPM Majara did not instruct DPP Motinyane to discharge the duo, but only "suggested" so in a cordial conversation. Still, that appears to have been grossly illegal.
"I intend not to deal with the allegation of misconduct or incapacity which have been deposed to by the deponent (AG Motsieloa KC), not because I accept that they are true but because essentially, they are irrelevant to the present application," states DPP Motinyane.
"There were no cordial discussions in the sense of warm, friendly and polite exchanges, on that day in September 2023. I was called to a meeting with Minister Majara who served as the political head of the ministry of Justice, Law and Human Rights. I was in attendance as the DPP...having discussed the issues centred around criminal trials, in particular cases concerning the events of 2014 (involving the military and other political actors, including Mr Metsing and Minister Mochoboroane).
"The minister then instructed me to withdraw charges against Mr Metsing and Minister Mochoboroane. In her own words, Minister Majara said to me 'concerning the case against ntate Metsing and ntate Mochoboroane, you must withdraw these charges against them, and thereafter I request that you call them and talk to them about that....
"I reiterate that DPM Majara did give me an unconscionable and manifestly unlawful instruction to withdraw charges against Mr Metsing and Minister Mochoboroane. Whether the instruction was given during a cordial meeting, or a meeting of the political heads and her subordinates, it is not material. It is the instruction to do or not to do a particular act by DPM Majara to me which is material.
"Indeed, the withdrawal of charges would have served the interests of the coalition government whose continuance and sustenance, is reliant upon common interests, mutual consultations and common decision making. The deponent is fully aware that since 2012 up to 2020, successive coalition governments in Lesotho collapsed precisely because of the absence of the above normative precepts.
"The charging, continuance or dropping of charges against military and political actors (involving 2014 incidents) has been at the centre of pre-election demagoguery by political parties and post-election disputations amongst coalition partners in 2015, 2017, 2020 and 2022. This is the reality, and the common feature associated with coalition politics in Lesotho," submits DPP Motinyane.
"Whilst it is correct that DPM Majara has no constitutional mandate to have given such instruction, which in itself manifests unconscionable and manifestly unlawful conduct, it is clear she had the interest in having "the charges against the heads of respective coalition parties (MP's Metsing and Mochoboroane) withdrawn. Otherwise, she should not have given the unconscionable and manifestly unlawful instruction in the first place.
"From the political point of view and in the interest of the coalition government and its partners, the discontinuance of criminal charges better served the continuance and stability of the coalition government and those of Mr Metsing and Minister Mochoboroane, than the continuance of those criminal charges."
In his answering affidavit Adv Motsieloa claimed that DPP Motinyane, after she had mentioned that the position was causing her stress and anxiety, had agreed to be redeployed to a new post of Special Advisor to the Attorney General (SAAG) on the same benefits and salary of the DPP. However, DPP Motinyane insists she never agreed to any such offer.
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In her reply DPP Motinyane states: "The redeployment was resorted to when it was clear that I did not carry out the instruction by DPM Majara. I have never experienced stress and anxiety in regard to the work pertaining to the office of the DPP, nor have I ever expressed such alleged stress and anxiety to the deponent.
"Assuming without conceding that I ever had stress and anxiety for reasons stated by the deponent, and I expressed same to him, as the Attorney General, he must have known that the only option (barring impeachment) available to me is to voluntarily resign from the office of the DPP for the same reasons he mentions and not to have me redeployed. The alleged showing of sympathy is not true and is unfounded. Attorney General could not have showed sympathy by having me redeployed which is a violation of section 99 read with 141 of the Constitution."
This matter is yet to be allocated a hearing date as it was not filed as an urgent application. The DPP has, nonetheless, sought in her application the staying of all procedures to remove her from office pending the finalisation of her case on the merits.
