NUL Council faces contempt charge

…as Mosito accuses university officials of defying appeal order

…. after being blocked from campus

…challenges termination of contract

Moorosi Tsiane

FIRED National University of Lesotho (NUL) Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor Kananelo Mosito, is challenging the university’s decision to terminate his contract prematurely and wants the Court of Appeal to find university officials in contempt of a June 1 order which, he argues, entitled him to assume the powers and functions of Acting Vice-Chancellor.

This follows the expiration of Professor Olusola Isaac Fajana’s term on 31 July 2026.

In papers filed before the Court of Appeal this week, Prof Mosito alleges that NUL management obstructed his entry into the Roma campus on July 31 and subsequently participated in a meeting that purportedly installed Professor Motlatsi Molati as Acting Vice-Chancellor despite a court order protecting  what he describes as the statutory succession process.

He wants the court to declare the conduct of the university officials unlawful and contemptuous, and to nullify both Prof Molati’s appointment as Acting Vice-Chancellor and the alleged termination of his fixed-term appointment as Pro-Vice-Chancellor.

The Council terminated his four-year contract on 2 August 2026, two years before its scheduled expiry. However, it said Prof Mosito retained his substantive position as a lecturer in the university’s Faculty of Law.

NUL Council, Prof Molati, Council chairperson Dr Khabele Matlosa, NUL 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 NUL are cited as respondents in the matter.

The dispute stems from a case pending before the High Court in which Prof Mosito is challenging the Council’s decision to begin recruiting Prof Fajana’s successor while the incumbent remained in office.

Prof Mosito argues that Section 16 of the National University of Lesotho Act only permits the establishment of a joint Council and Senate selection committee to recruit a new Vice Chancellor once a vacancy in that office has arisen.

The NUL Council initially sought the recusal of the entire High Court bench, arguing that the judges were Prof Mosito’s juniors and colleagues because he also serves as President of the Court of Appeal, and therefore would not be impartial. The Council also argued that the High Court lacked jurisdiction because the dispute was a labour matter.

However, Justice Molefi Makara rejected the argument, prompting the council to escalate the matter to the Court of Appeal.

Acting Court of Appeal Judge, Phillip Musonda, also dismissed the council’s bid, ordering the immediate suspension of the recruitment process aimed at replacing Prof Fajana before 31 July 2026.

The ruling also cleared the way for Prof Mosito to assume the office of Vice-Chancellor in an acting capacity once Prof Fajana’s term ended.

The Council did not recall Prof Mosito from the suspension it imposed on 22 April 2026. Instead, it elevated Prof Molati, whom it had appointed Acting Pro-Vice-Chancellor after Prof Mosito’s suspension, to the position of Acting Vice-Chancellor.

Prof Mosito now argues that the move amounted to contempt of Justice Musonda’s order.

He argues that the order was clear and binding, requiring that once the office of Vice-Chancellor became vacant, Section 17(4) would automatically take effect and the substantive Pro-Vice-Chancellor would assume the powers, functions and duties of Acting Vice-Chancellor without any further decision being required.

“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,” Prof Mosito says in his affidavit.

He further argues that, when the vacancy occurred, he was the only substantive Pro-Vice-Chancellor appointed under the NUL Order and that the statutory powers consequently 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 says.

Prof Mosito alleges that, instead of complying with the order, NUL management sought to remove the legal foundation upon which his assumption of the Acting Vice-Chancellor’s office rested.

“The purported termination of my appointment was therefore not an event independent of the order or merely collateral to its operation,” he says.

“It was the essential means by which the first respondent (Council) 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.”

The dispute came to a head on 31 July when Prof Mosito says he went to the Roma campus to assume his duties as Acting Vice-Chancellor.

He says a Deputy Sheriff accompanied him to serve and give effect to the court order, but he was prevented from entering the campus and accessing offices, records, systems and other facilities required to perform his functions.

According to Prof Mosito, university officials acted “jointly and in concert” to prevent his access.

He particularly accuses the university’s Director of Safety and Security, Mr Makoetlane, of deploying or authorising security structures under his control to prevent his entry.

“The obstruction could not, as a practical matter, have been maintained without the deployment, authority or acquiescence of those security structures,” Prof Mosito alleges.

He also accuses other officials of participating in the obstruction despite having knowledge of the court order.

Prof Mosito further alleges that Prof Molati knew about the order before accepting the purported appointment as Acting Vice-Chancellor.

He says the order had been discussed at a council meeting on July 20 and that he had also sent written notice of his assumption of duty to the university’s deans and directors on July 31.

According to the affidavit, the alleged defiance did not end with the events at the campus.

Prof Mosito takes particular issue with a meeting allegedly convened and chaired by Dr Matlosa on August 2, at which the appointment of Prof Molati and the termination of his own appointment were allegedly considered and adopted.

He wants the court to declare that the meeting and decisions taken there were in violation of and contempt of the June 1 order.

He further wants the purported appointment or recognition of Prof Molati as Acting Vice-Chancellor and the purported termination of his fixed-term appointment as Pro-Vice-Chancellor declared “unlawful, invalid and of no force or effect”.

Prof Mosito argues that the alleged contempt is not merely a dispute over his personal rights, but an attack on the authority of the court.

“The conduct complained of is not merely an infringement of my private rights. It is a deliberate affront to the authority of this Honourable Court, an interference with the due administration of justice, and a repudiation of the principle of legality and the rule of law,” he says.

He argues that the alleged contempt was completed through the obstruction of 31 July and the decisions taken on 2 August but remains continuing for as long as Prof Molati is recognised or allowed to act as Acting Vice-Chancellor and Prof Mosito remains excluded from the office and facilities required to perform the functions.

He is therefore asking the court not only to declare the conduct contemptuous but also to compel the respondents to purge the alleged contempt.

Prof Mosito seeks a coercive and suspended committal order of 30 days, or such period as the court considers appropriate, against the relevant respondents.

He proposes that the committal order be suspended on condition that the respondents comply fully with the court’s order within a period set by the court and refrain from further conduct inconsistent with it.

“The proposed relief is principally coercive and remedial rather than merely punitive.

“Its purpose is to secure compliance, restore the lawful position required by the order, vindicate the authority of this Honourable Court and prevent the Respondents from benefiting from or consolidating the consequences of their contempt.”

NUL Council has yet to file its opposing papers.

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