Go back to the drawing board, Mawere told

Daniel Nemukuyu Senior Court Reporter
A fresh bid by businessman Mr Mutumwa Mawere to invalidate sections of the Reconstruction Act used to seize firms indebted to State-owned companies failed yesterday after the Constitutional Court ruled his papers were in sham- bles.
The court’s finding prompted Mawere’s lawyers to withdraw the constitutional application for redrafting.

Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku said the state of the court application was bad and that withdrawing the matter was the only available option to avoid the embarrassment of having it dismissed.

“It is better to have this matter withdrawn because the papers are just in shambles.

“The only reasonable option is to withdraw and properly re-do the papers to save the case from being dismissed,” said the Chief Justice.

Deputy Chief Justice Luke Malaba described the founding affidavit forming part of the application as “chaotic” and “incoherent” as it failed to support the order that was being sought.

In 2011, the same court threw out the first application that sought to have 37 chapters of the Reconstruction Act scrapped.

In the 2011 judgment the court ruled that Mawere’s challenge had “no merit”.

The judges ruled that it was “nonsensical” to allege, as Mawere sought to do, that all 37 sections of the Act, including the title of the Act, were in

contravention of Sections 16 and 18 (9) of the old Constitution.

Yesterday, Mawere’s lawyers had reduced the number of the impugned sections to 13 but the papers were still found not in order.

Mawere lost Shabanie Mashaba Mines in 2004 after the Government claimed the company was insolvent, having failed to settle a mammoth debt to power utility, ZESA Holdings.