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Fidelis Munyoro Chief Court Reporter
High Court judge Justice Priscilla Chigumba has expressed disquiet at the manner in which proceedings were conducted in a house wrangle pitting Old Mutual chief executive Mr Jonas Mushosho and Mr Lloyd Mudimu of Norton over the past seven years.Mr Mudimu lost his Harare house when Justice Hungwe, who presided over the case, reportedly unprocedurally granted a notice of withdrawal in the ownership dispute.
This was after Mr Mushosho’s lawyer, Mr Tapiwa Mudambanuki, reportedly used dodgy documents to secure Mr Mudimu’s eviction from the property.
However, in a judgment made available recently, Justice Chigumba ruled in Mr Mudimu’s favour. She dismissed Mr Mushosho’s application for rescission of judgment on two matters that declared Mr Mudimu owner of stand number 2819 Bluff Hill.
Justice Chigumba said Mr Mushosho and Mr Mudimu made numerous applications and counter-applications from 2006 to the time of her ruling.
The wrangle started when Mr Mudimu bought the stand from Mr Mushosho in 2006 through Dinha, Bonongwe and Partners and built a house on the land.
But 10 months later, Mr Mushosho said he had never sold the stand. He reported the matter to Mabelreign police and engaged a law firm to handle the matter, and the case went all the way up to the High Court.
Mr Mudimu was evicted in October 2010 and Mr Mushosho has been letting out the house since then. Justice Chigumba ruled: “Surely, there comes a time when justice and fairness demands that both the victor and the vanquished act sensibly and accept that the matter has been conclusively resolved.
“I can do better than other esteemed courts have done before me, in expressing my disquiet at the manner in which the proceedings were conducted between these parties over such a lengthy period with no light at the end of the tunnel.”
Justice Hungwe, who was in the headlines in recent weeks after his 55-year- old paramour died minutes after being intimate with him in Bindura, faces a possible judicial enquiry after Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku wrote to President Mugabe in terms of Section 87(3) of the Constitution explaining the allegations of misconduct being levelled against the judge.
The Constitutional Court, on Tuesday last week, gave Justice Hungwe 30 days to explain the delay that saw a convicted murderer and robber Jonathan Mutsinze spending 12 years in remand prison awaiting sentence.
Mutsinze was convicted of murder with actual intent, extenuation was done before the matter was remanded to another day for sentencing. Justice Hungwe is said to have retained the court record which has not been seen again.
Meanwhile, the accused has been languishing in remand because the matter is considered partially heard since it did not go for sentencing.
To compound Mutsinze’s woes, the tapes pertaining to the case were also erroneously erased before the matter was completed, making the production of a duplicate record virtually impossible.
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