Promoting Administrative Justice in Lesotho - The Role of the Ombudsman, Sekara Sam Mafisa : book review

• Pages: 145-150
• Author: Hoolo 'Nyane
• Published date: 01 January 2015
• Date: 01 January 2015
• DOI: 10.10520/EJC177114

BOOK REVIEW

Mafisa, Sekara Sam: Promoting Administrative Justice in Lesotho –The

Role of the Ombudsman, Morija Printing Works, Morija 2010 pp1-183

(Paperback)

Reviewed By Hoolo ‘Nyane*

The Promoting Administrative Justice in Lesotho is one of the book-

length contributions that have started to emerge about the post 1993

constitutional design in Lesotho. It came almost simultaneously

with Saha’s The Constitution of Lesotho in the same year.

1

The great

void in the constitutional law of Lesotho today, in juxtaposition to

its comparators elsewhere in the Commonwealth, is that it is still

very dry – it lacks befitting scholarly nourishment that would

breathe some life into it. Consequently, the design unduly relies on

comparative constitutional jurisprudence every time it encounters

moments of doubt in its development. Intellectual contributions

that have largely gone into it have mainly been through academic

articles

2

and, to a very limited extent, judicial decisions. The design

is in dire need of comprehensive narratives that originate from the

local experience. Mafisa’s work somewhat plugs this void by

picking on one of the highly critical, yet regrettably underrated,

institutions in this constitutional design– the office of the

Ombudsman. As Okokpari poignantly contends, ‘the Lesotho

Ombudsman has a critical role to play in fostering good governance

and development - in protecting human rights, ensuring

accountability on the part of public officers, exposing corruption,

and promoting gender parity’.

3

* Lecturer, Constitutional Law, National University of Lesotho.

1

See Saha,Tusha Kanti. The Constitution of Lesotho. Kolkata, R. Combray& Co., 2010.

Both works were published in 2010, almost twenty years a fter the adoption of the

Lesotho Constitution of 1993.

2

See for instance some of the articles that came after 1993. Mahao, NL. ‘The

Constitution, the Elite and the Crisis Monarchy in Lesotho’ Lesotho Law Journal 1997

Vol 10(1) pp165-192; Mahao, NL. ‘Chieftaincy and the Search for Relevant

Constitutional Models in Lesotho’. Lesotho Law Journal 1993 Vol 9(1) pp149-170.

3

Okokpari, JA. ‘Contemporary governance and development issues in Lesotho:

implications for the Ombudsman's Office’. Lesotho Law Journal 1999 Vol 12(1) pp 67-

91. Mahao makes more or less the si milar observation that ‘critical to the crisis of

good governance in Lesotho are the disproportionately enormous powers of the