Govt admits error in rushed constitution amendment as legal challenge looms

MOSA MAOENG

MASERU – In a startling admission, Law Minister Richard Ramoeletsi has conceded that the government may have acted with undue haste in passing the contentious Tenth Amendment to the Constitution Bill OF 2024, sending it to the King for assent with sections that “were not supposed to be in it.”
The minister’s comments, made in a radio interview, come as the government braces for a high-stakes legal challenge from the advocacy group Advocates for the Supremacy of the Constitution (SECTION 2).
When questioned on how the government intends to rectify the error before the matter is taken to court, Minister Ramoeletsi stated they would “answer all the queries in court because now it is too late to prepare anything.”

He added that if the court orders the removal of the problematic sections, the government “will have to do so.”
SECTION 2 has announced its intention to petition the High Court to declare the Tenth Amendment Act of 2025, “unconstitutional, null, and void.”

The group argues the amendment was enacted in direct violation of Section 85(3) of the Constitution, which mandates a national referendum for any bill altering Chapter II – the chapter protecting fundamental human rights and freedoms.
The amendment introduced two new sections, 20A (Affirmative Action in Favour of Marginalised Groups) and 22A (Public Interest Litigation), into this protected chapter. SECTION 2 contends these are substantive alterations that legally required a public vote, which never occurred.
In a statement dated August 18, SECTION 2 argued that by transmitting the bill without a referendum, the Speaker of the National Assembly violated constitutional supremacy and placed the King in an “impossible position,” compelling him to act in breach of his oath to uphold the constitution.
The group has vowed that, upon winning the case, it will demand “Parliament take decisive action against those who unlawfully submitted the Bill for Royal Assent.”
The government’s position has found little support even among parliamentarians.

Popular Front for Democracy (PFD) leader and MP, Advocate Lekhetho Rakuoane, agreed that the insertion of sections 20A and 22A was a mistake.
“We accept that… they should be removed and not even subjected to a referendum,” Rakuoane told Public Eye, confirming that this argument would be presented in court to have the sections “eliminated or put elsewhere.”
The stage is now set for a constitutional showdown, testing the procedures that safeguard Lesotho’s supreme law against political expediency.