Court throws away Chombo’s wife’s urgent application

divorce case as an unopposed matter.
This cleared the way for the divorce to be determined in the family law court unopposed today.
Minister Chombo’s lawyers Mr Wilson Manase and Advocate Thabani Mpofu, successfully applied for Mrs Chombo’s defence to be struck off after she failed to turn up for the pre-trial conference before Judge President Justice George Chiweshe.
The matter was set down for today but Mrs Chombo’s lawyers filed an urgent chamber application to stay the determination of the case unopposed.
Justice Ben Hlatshwayo dismissed the urgent chamber application for lack of urgency.
In her application, Mrs Chombo said the notice to attend a pre-trial conference was served on her lawyers who could not reach her due to communication network problems.
She argued that she was not in willful default and that when the notice of the conference date came she was in South Africa.
Mrs Chombo feared she would “walk away from a marriage of over 26 years with nothing” if the case was handled without her defence.
The dismissal of the case came at the time another judge was yet to determine the application by the minister to bar the media from covering the divorce proceedings.
Justice Antonia Guvava mid last year indefinitely reserved judgment on the application.
The divorce case has dragged due to disagreements on property sharing.
Mrs Chombo claimed the minister had vast properties countrywide, an issue that was contested by the Minister’s legal team.
The minister dismissed as unfounded the properties that Mrs Chombo was mentioning in the pre-trial conferences.
Minister Chombo and his wife separated more than 18 years ago and he is now seeking divorce on the grounds that the marriage had irretrievably broken.