THE continuing disappearance of case files at the Magistrates’ Courts is a deepening crisis that strikes at the very heart of Lesotho’s justice system.
The latest incident, claimed by the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offences (DCEO) as the source for the collapse of the corruption case against the Peka legislator, Mohopoli Monokoane, has once again laid bare the rot that is festering within the Subordinate Courts.
According to the DCEO, the case crumbled not because of weak evidence or prosecutorial incompetence, but because the court record was mysteriously missing, only to later reappear in the Chief Magistrate’s office, incomplete and with critical pages inexplicably gone.
Such irregularities of lost dockets, vanishing pages and unexplained dismissals are not random administrative errors. They fit into a disturbing pattern that has persisted for years, pointing to systemic dysfunction and, increasingly, to deliberate sabotage.
The magistrates themselves had in March 2022 announced that they were investigating allegations of corruption within the magistracy.
These allegations were ignited by a scandal involving the “fraudulent” release of a murder and armed robbery suspect, Ntsane Motumi. The release had been done behind the back of the remanding magistrate, Itumeleng Letsika, who later discovered that Motumi’s case file had disappeared. She was forced to work from a dummy file which had been stripped of several charges she had formally placed before court – an incident similar to that of Mr Monokoane’s case where the court file’s crucial pages were missing.
Worse still, Magistrate Letsika allegedly received death threats shortly after reporting the incident to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC). Yet despite the gravity of these allegations of corruption, interference in criminal processes and intimidation of judicial officers, the matter evaporated into silence.
In its latest annual report (2024/25), the DCEO accused the Magistrates Courts of being highly vulnerable to corruption, raising alarms over missing dockets, bribery and questionable judgments. Parliament heard that the integrity of case records in magistrates’ courts can no longer be taken for granted.
It is therefore impossible to view the Mr Monokoane case in isolation. In that matter, DCEO claimed prosecutors arrived for scheduled hearings only to discover the record missing. With witnesses prepared and present, the case stalled. Later, when proceedings resumed, only fragments of the earlier record were recovered. Key pages had vanished. Crucial procedural steps were absent. And in the end, Chief Magistrate ‘Matankiso Nthunya dismissed the entire case, citing failure to prosecute. The DCEO insisted it had served all necessary documents and had never been informed of a new hearing date.
If a corruption case involving a sitting Member of Parliament can collapse under such suspicious circumstances, what of the countless cases involving ordinary Basotho who lack lawyers, influence, or media visibility?
When court records can mysteriously walk out of secure offices or reappear sanitised, the rule of law becomes a matter of convenience, open to manipulation by those with access, influence, or malicious intent. The public loses faith. The innocent face injustice. The guilty walk free. This is a national crisis.
We therefore call for an urgent, independent, forensic investigation into the management, handling and possible tampering of case files within the Magistrates’ Courts. Such an investigation cannot be carried out by internal judicial structures alone, given that some of the very individuals entrusted with safeguarding court integrity may be implicated.
This investigation must extend beyond administrative audits. It requires full interviews with affected magistrates and prosecutors, examination of access logs, and scrutiny of internal file-tracking protocols.
The DCEO cannot be seen to investigate “mismanagement” of its case in isolation All litigants whose files were tempered with need justice, especially when the DCEO had already told Parliament that it had picked up elements of corruption at the magistracy.
Moreover, the judiciary must embrace modernisation. Paper-based records have long proven vulnerable to manipulation. The country urgently needs an electronic case management system with secure backups, controlled access, and digital audit trails. Without it, we will continue to face recurring “missing files” scandals.
Lesotho cannot continue tolerating a court system in which the fate of citizens depends on whether a file vanishes, a forgotten court date, or a magistrate’s office mysteriously becomes the last known location of a crucial document.