Anglican church properties to remain under Bishop Kunonga

led by Archbishop Nolbert Kunonga, will remain in charge of Anglican  church properties in the old Harare diocese until the appeal by the Anglican Church of the Province of Central Africa over provisional control of the church property has been heard.

The CPCA is appealing against a High Court judgment that gave provisional control of the affected church property to Archbishop Kunonga until the courts have made the final rulings. The CPCA appealed against this judgment, seeking provisional control until the final court decisions, but had the appeal dismissed due to procedural irregularities in the appeal.
Last week the Supreme Court allowed the CPCA application for condonation for not providing security costs and reinstated its appeal against the provisional order. CPCA will now provide security for costs as required by the superior court rules to enable it to have this appeal heard.

The question then arose over which province would have control of the property until that appeal was heard.
Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, who presided over a chamber application, has now ruled that the reinstatement of the CPCA appeal would not render ineffective the original High Court provisional order granted to Archbishop Kunonga’s independent province to remain in charge of the assets until the appeal was decided.

The CPCA application for condonation of its irregularities was allowed on the two grounds. First, the judge said, the CPCA failure to provide security costs was due to incompetence or lack of appreciation of the Supreme Court rules of procedure by its lawyers. “The problem here is ineptitude as opposed to a deliberate and conscious decision to defy the rules of this court,” said Chief Justice Chidyausiku.

Secondly, the judge ruled that there was need to bring the dispute to finality and stop the confusion that was arising.
“Appeals against these judgments have been noted to this court. In the event of the appeals against the High Court judgments inconsistent with judgment being successful, an undesirable situation would arise in that the judgment would remain extant, despite the existence of a Supreme Court judgment to the contrary. Such a situation would lead to unacceptable confusion.

“Having considered that there have been numerous applications and counter applications between these parties, there is need to curtail these applications.
“The multiplicity of these applications is simply adding to the confusion and hampering expeditious finalisation of the dispute between the parties.
“Taking these factors into account, it is desirable that the judgment (judgment no HC166/09), in respect of which I have reinstated the Notice of Appeal, remain extant until set aside by this Court on appeal. For the avoidance of doubt, the judgment will not be suspended by the noting of an appeal against it,” Chief Justice Chidyausiku said.

The control over the property of the old Anglican diocese of Harare dispute arose three years ago when Bishop Kunonga, as he was then, split with the CPCA over issues involving tolerance or otherwise of homosexualty in certain circumstances.

With the agreement of his diocesan synod Bishop Kunonga took the diocese out of the CPCA, created a new province of Zimbabwe, split the old diocese into five, consecrated four new bishops and was elected the archbishop of the new province that covered his old diocese. Bishop Kunonga and the Trustees of the Diocese of Harare are seeking control of the Anglican Church and its properties in Zimbabwe. According to a draft order Bishop Kunonga wants the courts to declare him the legitimate Bishop of the Diocese of Harare and the diocesan Trustees of the Diocese of Harare be declared legitimate. The trustees are: Bishop Kunonga, Mr Beaven Michael Gundu, Mr Justin M Nyazika, Mr P Majokwere, Mr Onias Gatawa, Mr Alfred Tome and Mr Winter Reggie Shamuyarira.