’Marafaele Mohloboli

THE High Court has ordered the Lesotho Correctional Service (LCS) to stop evicting its fired staff association secretary-general Lebonejoang Ramohalali from a government house pending the finalisation of his court challenge to the dismissal.

Mr Ramohalali was fired from the agency on 12 October 2016 for insubordination. The dismissal was made following his suspension on 6 January 2016 for speaking to the media without authorisation about the Lesotho Correctional Services Bill (2015) last December which has since become a law.

Following his dismissal, Mr Ramohalali received a letter from Berea District Commander, Senior Superintendent Lipholo Nthako, instructing him to vacate the government house before 13 November this year.

Dated 21 October 2016, the letter also requests Mr Ramohalali to hand over all the items of uniform and government property in his possession.

However, Mr Ramohalali lodged an urgent application in the High Court seeking to interdict the LCS from evicting him pending the finalisation of his challenge of the dismissal.

In granting the interim court order on 28 October, Justice Tšeliso Monaphathi ordered the LCS to dispatch Mr Ramohalali or the High Court registrar with a record of the disciplinary proceedings.

Justice Monaphathi also ordered both parties to file heads of argument on or before tomorrow for the main application.

In the main application, which he lodged on Friday, Mr Ramohalali argues the dismissal was unfair since he received a letter requesting him to “show cause” why he should not be fired on 15 September, which was before the 21 working days the correspondence stipulated had lapsed.