Moremi wins against Molale
Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Friday March 19, 2021 23:20
Moremi had taken government to Court following the decision by then Minister of Mineral Resources, Green Technology & Energy Security Molale to sack her from the BERA Board for alleged misconduct.
Recently, Lobatse High Court judge, Reuben Lekorwe nullified Molale’s decision to fire Moremi arguing that the minister was biased, impartial and violated the rules of justice in the process of removing her from the Board.
The Judge further said Molale wore ‘many hats’ as he was the complainant, prosecutor, adjudicator and ultimately the decision maker. This, he said, must be imputed without the need to either prove that actual bias or reasonable suspicion of bias existed.
The Court found that Molale did not even have authority to suspend the applicant with his powers of suspension only limited to situations where a concerned Board member is facing criminal charges in respect of which a sentence of imprisonment may be imposed.
“That said, it is difficult to imagine how the Minister could have possibly considered the investigation report, formulated an opinion that there was prima facie evidence of misconduct, invited the applicant to make representations of defence and still judged the applicant’s defence with a fair and an impartial mind,” reasoned Justice Lekorwe.
The judge continued: “This is a matter where he should have, as he did with the investigation, appointed a tribunal and a person, not a member of the said tribunal, to present a case against the applicant and only actively participated at the tail end of the process, making a determination whether to remove or not on the basis of what an impartial tribunal may have put before him. In the final analysis, the minister did not approach the matter with an unbiased mind.”
Justice Lekorwe said that even if the Court was to assume that the BERA Act authorises Molale to be the complainant, prosecutor and the judge, on the facts, the conclusion is inevitable that he approached the matter with a biased.
As a result, the Judge ordered that the decision of Molale to remove the applicant from the position of full time Board member of BERA be reviewed and set aside.
The Court also ordered costs against the Ministry of Minerals Resources, Green Technology & Energy Security, Molale and Attorney General who were cited as first, second and third respondents respectively in the matter.
This was not the first lawsuit against Molale, after other three ex-Board members took the current minister of Local Government and Rural Development to court over their dismissal.