Former MPs in financial distress

… As bid to enrich themselves after leaving office collapses

Dozens of former members of the 10th Parliament, whose term ended in July 2022, are pleading with the current Parliament for financial rescue after multiple attempts to double their retirement gratuities were rejected by the courts and pension authorities.

The beleaguered former MPs are in panic mode after the Public Officers’ Defined Contribution Pension Fund refused to pay them a 50 percent take-home gratuity, a benefit they insist they awarded themselves before leaving office.

The Fund, acting strictly within the law, paid them the lawful 25 percent instead.

The Public Officers’ Defined Contribution Pension Fund, established under the 2008 Act, provides retirement benefits to public officers and is managed by a Board of Trustees appointed by the Minister of Finance in consultation with the Minister of Public Service.

At the time the 10th Parliament dissolved in July 2022, the law governing retirement benefits for MPs, the Specified Offices Defined Contribution Pension Fund Act, clearly provided a 25 percent gratuity.

But the former legislators argue they amended the Act before dissolution to double their own gratuities to 50 percent.

Their biggest problem is that the law they rely on never actually existed at the time their term ended.

They petitioned parliament earlier this year to intervene. Their petition was referred to the portfolio committee on law and public safety cluster for consideration in March 2025 and they were consequently inviting to a briefing session in April.

According to a report tabled this week by Parliament’s Portfolio Committee, the Bill increasing gratuities, the Specified Offices Defined Contribution Pension Fund (Amendment) Bill, 2022, had indeed been passed by both Houses but had not been signed by the King when Parliament dissolved in July 2022.

After the term expired, then–Prime Minister Moeketsi Majoro declared a state of emergency, and His Majesty King Letsie III recalled Parliament. During that controversial recall, MPs hurriedly passed a series of laws, including the same pension amendment.

The King assented in September 2022.

But that manoeuvre was later struck down by the High Court after Kananelo Boloetse and Advocate Lintle Tuke challenged the legality of the emergency declaration and the recall of Parliament. The Court found both unconstitutional and nullified all laws passed and assented to during the recalled sitting.

The government appealed, and lost.

That should have put the matter to rest, but in December 2022, the newly elected 11th Parliament revived six Bills that had already passed both Houses before the July dissolution, including the pension amendment.

Led by Minister Selibe Mochoboroane and seconded by MP Lekhetho Rakuoane, the House reinstated these Bills under Standing Order No.105, and they were finally assented to, again.

The controversial amendment, therefore, only became law months after the former MPs had ceased to be MPs.

Nonetheless, the aggrieved former legislators went to the High Court to demand that the December 2022 law apply retroactively to enrich them. The High Court refused to grant their prayer.

In a surprising twist, the portfolio committee seems to suggest that the invalidated September 2022 version survived the court ruling, a claim with no legal footing.

It argued in its report that Speaker Sephiri Motanyane signed the certificate of the Bill on 11 July 2022, two days before parliament dissolved, making it a “finished Bill”.

On this basis, the committee claims that the High Court’s ruling in Boloetse and Tuke, which invalidated all laws passed during the unconstitutional recall of Parliament, should not have affected this particular Bill.

Describing the approach as “legal overreach,” the committee insists that it was wrong to treat the certified bill the same as the unfinished ones.

In essence, it is relying on a procedural certificate to claim a benefit that the law did not grant at the relevant time, while dismissing a constitutional ruling that invalidated the entire emergency recall.

But the Fund acted lawfully. The law at the time of the MPs’ exit provided 25 percent, not 50 percent.

The amendment that approved 50 percent came after they left office.
And the version they try to resurrect was struck down by the courts and stayed down.

Yet the former MPs want parliament to intervene so that taxpayers can fund a gratuity increase they rushed through, failed to complete on time, and which the courts ultimately invalidated.

But even the December 2022 law is on shaky legal ground. In 2023, Boloetse challenged the legality of Standing Order No. 105B, arguing that the Constitution does not permit a new Parliament to revive business that had lapsed when the previous Parliament was dissolved.

Although he initially lost in the High Court, the Court of Appeal overturned that decision and struck down the standing order.

The appellate court noted that Section 78 of the Constitution, which outlines the law-making process, does not address whether Bills that lapsed upon dissolution may be reinstated. Subsection (2), the judges said, simply establishes where Bills must originate, the National Assembly.

“The clause must be interpreted within the context and purpose of parliamentary democracy. The principle that Parliament cannot bind its successors, long recognised in many systems, applies equally in constitutional democracies,” the judgment stated.

The court went on: “Standing Order No. 105B does not comply with the spirit and purpose of Section 78 of the Constitution, interpreted within the context of Lesotho’s constitutional democracy and monarchy. The appeal must succeed.”

As a result, Parliament was restrained from promulgating any Bill that had lapsed at the dissolution of the 10th Parliament, and the King was specifically barred from giving Royal Assent to any Bill unfinished at that dissolution.

Although the Court of Appeal did not nullify laws enacted under the defective procedure, only because Boloetse had not asked for such relief, the decision made it clear that the entire process of reviving the bills was unconstitutional.

The portfolio committee itself acknowledged this uncomfortable truth. In its report, it stated: “C of A (CIV) 62/2023 Kananelo Boloetse vs The Speaker of the National Assembly — known as Boloetse Two — dealt a fatal legal blow to the reinstatement of Gazette Legal Notice No. 111 VOL 67 of the Specified Offices Defined Contribution Pension Fund (Amendment) Act dated 23rd December 2022.

“Standing Order 105(B), which reinstated the bills that were affected by the dissolution of the 10th Parliament, was declared unconstitutional, and therefore, the bills reinstated under that Standing Order have been affected. Unless the Gazette dated 1st September 2022 is considered the lawful and constitutional act, the petitioners and public officers have no new pension law.”

The committee has made a controversial recommendation. It suggested that Parliament consider invoking Section 3(a) of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which allows for the reinstatement of bills tabled in the previous Parliament, potentially with retrospective effect.

The Tenth Amendment was only enacted in August 2025. Even so, Boloetse, the Advocates for the Supremacy of the Constitution (SECTION 2), and the Law Society of Lesotho are challenging its constitutionality, and the matter is still before the High Court.

Staff Reporter

Authored by our expert team of writers and editors, with thorough research.