admin
Mashudu Netsianda, Senior Court Reporter
THE High Court has thrown out charges against professional hunter Theodor Albert Christian Bronkhorst who allegedly assisted an American dentist Walter Palmer to kill Cecil the lion.
Bronkhorst was charged with facilitating the killing of the collared lion which had a GPS tracker on its neck.
The lion was being monitored by researchers at Oxford University in the United Kingdom.
Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Maxwell Takuva’s ruling follows an application for review of court proceedings at the lower court by Bronkhorst through his lawyer, Advocate Perpetua Dube.
In papers before the court, Hwange regional magistrate Ms Dambudzo Malunga and the state were cited as the respondent.
Justice Takuva ruled that the charges against Bronkhorst were too vague to enable him to mount a proper defence.
The judge set aside Ms Malunga’s decision to dismiss Bronkhorst’s application for exception to discharge and to have his indictment quashed.
“It is ordered that the decision of the second respondent (Ms Malunga) handed down on 20 October 2015 in which she dismissed the applicant’s exception to discharge and the application to quash the indictment be and hereby reviewed and set aside,” he said.
“The exception is upheld and the application to quash the indictment is allowed and therefore charges against the applicant are hereby quashed and set aside,” ruled Justice Takuva.
The judge also nullified the magistrate’s ruling in which she denied Bronkhorst’s application for referral of constitution issues to the ConCourt for determination.
Bronkhorst, in his application, argued that the court a quo was very critical in its judgment, of the alleged delay in raising the constitutional issues.
“I aver that in my understanding, there are no time limits and not time bars for the raising of constitutional issues. The learned court a quo misapprehended what the exception entails, and what legal actions that procedural step entails, and accordingly did not deal correctly with legal issues,” he argued.
Bronkhorst challenged the charges of contravening the provisions of the Parks and Wildlife Act and he sought an order quashing his indictment.
He argued that the outcome of the review application was likely to have a bearing on the proceedings before the Hwange regional court. He then applied to the High Court for a review of a judgment by Ms Malunga, which dismissed the defence application to have the charges thrown out.
Ms Malunga dismissed two applications by Bronkhorst which sought to have the charges quashed and have the matter referred to the Constitutional Court in terms of section 175 (4) of the constitution prompting the defence to apply for a review at the Bulawayo High Court.
Bronkhorst has been charged under section 66 of the Parks and Wildlife Act for allegedly failing to prevent an unlawful hunt.
In his grounds for review, Bronkhorst said the magistrate’s treatment of the proceedings gave rise to an appearance that she had prejudiced the exception and other preliminary issues in favour of the State.
Palmer shot the lion with a bow and arrow and finished it off with a gun after luring it out of its protected area with another animal’s carcass in July last year.
It is alleged that Palmer paid about $50 000 to Bronkhorst and his associates for the illegal hunt. Last year, Justice Martin Makonese blocked the Prosecutor-General’s Office from continuing with criminal proceedings against Bronkhorst.
The American dentist who killed the famed lion last year was not charged.
Cecil’s killing sparked international outrage, and prompted a global campaign to end lion trophy hunting.
The lion attracted photographic safaris and was part of an Oxford research project into lions at the Hwange National Park. — @mashnets
Online Reporter