By Motṧelisi Sekonyela
The hearing for an application in which some civil groupings are seeking to block the government-imposed mandatory COVID-19 vaccination was on Tuesday postponed to February, on a date yet to be determined.
The applicants are the Christian Advocates and Ambassadors of Lesotho, Justice and Democratic Ambassadors Association and the Lesotho Public Service Staff Association, among others.
The application seeks an order that the implementation of the Public Health (Covid-19) Risk Determination and Mitigation Measures (Amendment) (No 4) Regulations of 2021 be put to a halt.
The legal representative of the plaintiffs, Advocate Fusi Sehapi, said the matter was postponed because the High Court is closed until February and only attends to ‘urgent’ cases.
Addressing the media shortly after the announcement of the postponement, Sehapi slammed the Chief Justice for not regarding the case as urgent and worthy of being heard by a specially designated judge who is on stand-by for urgent cases.
“The order to have this case postponed to February shows that it is not seen as urgent. This is shocking, because people’s livelihoods are at stake here and nothing is more urgent than that. People are being denied health services, access to their work environments, access to shopping centres, just because they are unvaccinated.
“This is a matter of life and death, yet for some reason, the court does not see the urgency in this application,” Sehapi harangued.
