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Harare Bureau
MDC-T’s controversially appointed president Mr Nelson Chamisa, who last week cast aspersions on the judiciary, is now contesting a High Court verdict allowing his rival Dr Thokozani Khupe to use the party name and symbols.
Mr Chamisa and Dr Khupe are locked in an acrimonious power struggle sparked by the death of founding party leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai in February this year. The Chamisa camp yesterday filed an appeal at the Supreme Court challenging the High Court decision refusing to bar Dr Khupe’s formation to use the same party name, trademark, signs and symbols.
The High Court in Bulawayo last week ruled that an urgent application that was filed by the Chamisa faction was not urgent.
Justice Francis Bere, who presided over the matter, also ruled that nothing could stop Dr Khupe from operating her formation under the party’s name.
The Chamisa-led MDC-T faction, which has hired Advocate Thabani Mpofu to argue the appeal, now wants the superior court to set-aside the High Court decision.
It also wants the dispute heard afresh before a different judge.
In its grounds of appeal filed at the Supreme Court yesterday, the Chamisa camp is arguing that the lower court erred in making pronouncements on substantive issues not before it and on which the parties had advanced no argument. “The court erred in coming to the conclusion that the appellant had not instituted the proceedings before it and so erred in making that determination without having any regard to appellant’s onstitutive documents and or operational statutes,” said Adv Mpofu.
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