CHAPTER 3
3.1
BACKGROUND TO THE LESOTHO BILL
The Lesotho Electronic Transactions and Electronic Commerce Bill 2013232 is a much
anticipated initiative that responds to the call for the international community to enact
electronic transactions legislations233 based on 1996 United Nations Commission on
International Trade Law (UNICTRAL) Model Law on Electronic Commerce.234
Supported by the International Telecommunications (ITU)’s expertise,
235
the Lesotho
Bill is a welcome endeavour that seeks to embrace the global focus for the digital
technologies which are said to impinge upon a legal system based on an analogue
system.236 The implementation of the 2005 Lesotho Information and Communications
Technology Policy (the Lesotho ICT Policy),237 and the impending Lesotho digital
migration venture,238 could be well said to indicate Lesotho’s appreciation of the socalled information society and knowledge economy.239
3.1.1 Summary of electronic transactions provisions of the Lesotho Bill
The Bill divides electronic transactions provisions into four parts. Part one deals with
preliminary provisions commencing with title, definitions, objects, interpretation,
sphere of application, and variation of agreement by parties which constitute sections
1 to 6 respectively. Part two is subtitled legal recognition and effect of electronic
communications, and it covers legal recognition of electronic communication, writing
and signature requirements from sections 7 to 9. Part three which encompasses
232
The Bill available at www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Projects/ITU-EC-ACP/HIPSSA/Pages/In-countryassistance/Lesotho.aspx (accessed 20 October 2014).
233 The UNCITRAL Guide to Enactment available at www.uncitral.org/pdf/english/texts/electcom/0589450_Ebook.pdf (27 March 2015).
234 The UNCITRAL Guide to Enactment available at www.uncitral.org/pdf/english/texts/electcom/0589450_Ebook.pdf (27 March 2015).
235 The ITU available at www.ist-africa.org/home/default.asp?page=doc-by-id-print&docid=5191 (accessed 8
December 2014).
236 Van der Merwe, D. (2014) “A comparative overview of the (sometimes uneasy) relationship between the
digital information and certain legal fields in South Africa and Uganda” 17 Potchefstroom Elec. LJ 296 at 300.
237 The Lesotho ICT Policy 2005 available at http://www.gov.ls/documents/Lesotho_ICT_Policy_Final.pdf
(accessed 22 February 2015).
238 The digital migration collaboration between Lesotho and South Africa available at
www.gov.za/communications -minister-collaborates-lesotho-counterpart-digital-migration (accessed 29 July
2015).
239 Fitzgerald et al (2007: 13).
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