Mosito took contempt fight to wrong court: NUL

…as the university argues Court of Appeal cannot hear matter as court of first instance

Moorosi Tsiane

THE National University of Lesotho (NUL) has taken aim at dismissed Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Kananelo Mosito’s contempt of court application, arguing he brought it to the wrong forum because the Court of Appeal has no jurisdiction to hear the matter as a court of first instance.

Prof Mosito has approached the apex court seeking orders declaring NUL officials in contempt of a High Court order handed down by Justice Phillip Musonda on 1 June 2026, which he argues entitled him to assume the powers and functions of Acting Vice-Chancellor once Professor Olusola Isaac Fajana’s term expired on 31 July 2026.

He alleges that the NUL management obstructed his entry into the Roma campus on 31 July, then participated in a meeting that purportedly installed Professor Motlatsi Molati as Acting Vice-Chancellor, in defiance of the order protecting the “statutory succession” process.

Prof Mosito wants the university officials’ conduct declared unlawful and contemptuous, and Prof Molati’s appointment as Acting Vice-Chancellor – along with the alleged termination of his own fixed-term appointment as Pro-Vice-Chancellor – nullified.

NUL Council terminated Prof Mosito’s four-year contract on 2 August, two years before its scheduled expiry, though the university said he retained his substantive position as a lecturer in the Faculty of Law.

Defending the matter before the Court of Appeal this week, the NUL Council argued that the application should be dismissed outright because the Court of Appeal is an appellate court and cannot investigate and determine a matter for the first time. The university’s position was advanced by its counsel, Advocate Motiea Teele KC, before a three-member panel comprising Justices Petrus Damaseb, Van der Westhuizen and Moneuoa Kopo.

NUL Council, Acting Vice-Chancellor Prof Molati, Council chairperson Dr Khabele Matlosa, Head of Legal Services Advocate Mamello Makau, Acting Registrar Dr Lipalesa Mathe, Director of Safety and Security Dick Makoetlane, Commissioner of Police Advocate Borotho Matsoso and the university itself are cited as respondents.

Adv Teele told the court that Prof Mosito had brought the application before the wrong forum.

“The apex court is not the court of first instance. It is an appellate body and does not have jurisdiction to deal with Professor Mosito’s application,” he argued, adding that granting the orders sought would require the court to investigate issues for the first time – something it has no power to do.

The NUL Council went further, arguing that even if the court found it had jurisdiction, the 1 June 2026 order did not automatically install Prof Mosito as Acting Vice-Chancellor when Prof Fajana’s term expired. Adv Teele argued the order dealt with the relationship between the offices of Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor, not with conferring an automatic right on a particular individual.

“This order was, by design, not mentioning people by name. It was simply about how the two offices of the Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor should interact once the post becomes vacant,” he said.

According to Adv Teele, Prof Mosito could not rely on the order because he had already been suspended when the Vice-Chancellor’s office became vacant.

“There is nothing suggesting that Justice Musonda’s order overrides Professor Mosito’s suspension. It references the offices, not the individuals,” he argued.

The NUL maintains the order neither cancelled nor overrode Prof Mosito’s suspension, and cannot be read as requiring the university to hand him the reins after Prof Fajana’s departure. Adv Teele asked the court to dismiss the application in its entirety.

“The application fails in respect of all prayers because the common denominator requires more than this court is able to give within its jurisdiction. The NUL had no intention to disobey Justice Musonda’s order. We pray that this court dismiss the application.”

Through his lawyer, Advocate William Mokhare, Prof Mosito accused The NUL and its officials of deliberately defying the court order by preventing him from assuming the functions of Acting Vice-Chancellor when Prof Fajana’s term expired. Adv Mokhare argued that the university was in contempt and should be punished for allegedly denying his client access to the Roma campus when he went there to resume the duties he says had devolved upon him.

He also challenged Prof Molati’s appointment, arguing it violated the statutory succession mechanism the order was meant to protect, and pointed out that the NUL Council began recruiting a successor to Prof Fajana as early as 22 October 2025 – despite his fixed-term contract only being due to expire on 31 July 2026.

On 4 May 2026, Prof Mosito approached the High Court seeking, among other reliefs, an interdict stopping the recruitment process and declaratory orders on the interpretation and operation of sections 16(2) and 17(4) of the National University of Lesotho Order, 1992.

Adv Mokhare maintained that the 1 June order was clear and binding: once the Vice-Chancellor’s office became vacant, section 17(4) automatically took effect, giving the substantive Pro-Vice-Chancellor the powers, functions and duties of Acting Vice-Chancellor without requiring a further decision by Council.

“The order was thus deliberately framed not merely to prohibit a direct appointment inconsistent with the statutory succession, but to prevent every indirect device by which the same forbidden result might otherwise be achieved,” he argued.

He submitted that Prof Mosito was the only substantive Pro-Vice-Chancellor appointed under the NUL Order when the vacancy arose, so the statutory powers vested in him automatically.

“The identity of the officer upon whom the acting functions devolved was fixed by law at the moment the vacancy occurred and was not thereafter open to alteration by those bound to give effect to it,” he said.

Adv Mokhare argued that instead of complying with the order, the university sought to remove the legal basis for Prof Mosito’s assumption of office by terminating his appointment.

“The purported termination of his appointment was not an event independent of the order or merely collateral to its operation,” he submitted, describing it instead as the mechanism through which the university sought to defeat the order’s effect. “It was the essential means by which the university sought, through its own subsequent conduct, to remove retrospectively the statutory officer whose assumption of the functions of Acting Vice-Chancellor had already occurred by operation of law.”

Adv Mokhare told the court that university officials acted “jointly and in concert” to prevent his client from accessing the institution on 31 July, despite the existence of the court order, and that this conduct continued afterward. He singled out a meeting allegedly convened and chaired by Dr Matlosa on 2 August, at which Prof Molati’s appointment and the termination of Prof Mosito’s own appointment were considered and adopted.

He asked the court to declare that the meeting and its decisions violated the 1 June order and amounted to contempt, and to declare Prof Molati’s purported appointment or recognition as Acting Vice-Chancellor, along with the purported termination of Prof Mosito’s fixed-term appointment, “unlawful, invalid and of no force or effect.”

The Court of Appeal reserved judgment after hearing arguments from both sides, saying it would endeavour to deliver its decision as soon as possible.

The post Mosito took contempt fight to wrong court: NUL appeared first on Lesotho Times.