SUMMARY

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: The applicants are challenging the candidacy of the 1st respondent to stand for election into the National Assembly on account of his non-compliance with section 58 (2) ( c) of the Constitution of Lesotho 1993- Held the threshold for proficiency in either official language is low, the law as it is framed does not require perfection but merely an ability to speak and write ‘well enough’ for him to be able to participate in the deliberations- Applicants not have made out a case for disqualification of the 1st respondent- Application accordingly dismissed except for a prayer which calls on Parliament to enact laws regulating citizenship matters in terms of Eighth Amendment to the Constitution Act 2018-Intemperate use language in affidavits- Counsel mulcted with costs de bonis proprii for allowing insulting and intemperate language to find its way into the affidavits.

                                                       SUMMARY

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: Application to have section 98(4) of the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Act no.40 of 2008 declared unconstitutional for violating section 12 of the Constitution, in that it permits the concurrent running of criminal and civil proceedings in respect of the same property seized in terms of it- she had argued that, given this scenario, it forces her to disclose her defence in civil proceedings thereby  forcing her to waive her right to self-incrimination with the consequence that her pending criminal trial is prejudiced- Held, this section does not force an applicant faced with forfeiture application to incriminate herself, what it rather does is to leave her with the choice between leaving forfeiture application go unchallenged and substantively responding to it, held that for this reason, this section is constitutional.

-The applicant had further sought to have a three-year delay to charge her with criminal offences following her suspension from work, violated her right to be tried within a reasonable time in terms of section 12 of the Constitution, Held, pre-charge delay in preferring charges not protected by the right to speedy trial a provided under section 12 of the Constitution, the reckoning of time within which a person must be tried starts after charges have been read  not before.

SUMMARY

By creating statutory offences and the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offences, the Prevention of Corruption and Economic Offences Act of 1999 does not give the Directorate the exclusive authority to investigate and prosecute economic offences under the Act. The constitutional mandates of the Police to investigate and of the National Director of Public Prosecutions to prosecute all criminal offences in Lesotho remain untouched.