Wenslus Murape
Mathew Masinge
HIGH Court Judge Pisirayi Kwenda has reserved judgment in a bail appeal lodged by businessmen Moses Mpofu and Mike Chimombe.
The judge said his judgment will be ready after August 19.
Through their lawyers, Mpofu and Chimombe had noted the bail appeal last week before the State raised preliminary objections yesterday.
The State argued that the appeal has been superseded by events and requested Mpofu and Chimombe to make a fresh bail appeal given that the matter is now before a High Court Judge.
Harare Regional Magistrate, Stanford Mambanje, indicted the duo for trial from October 1 to 4 at the High Court.
Mpofu and Chimombe are facing US$7,7 million fraud charges emanating from the Presidential Goats Scheme.
The two, who are represented by Tapson Dzvetero and Ashiel Mugiya, argued that the High Court must first deal with the issue of why the magistrate had denied them bail in the first place.
They want the High Court to make a determination that automatically corrects and becomes a magistrate court’s decision.
“If the High Court agrees with the State that the pending bail appeal has been mooted then it means the appellants were entitled to bail all along.
“It also means that the magistrate’s decision to deny our client’s bail was erroneous.
“We are only testing if the magistrate was correct and the High Court must make a determination based on these submissions,” submitted Dzvetero.
Dzvetero said his client was entitled to question why he was denied bail by the magistrate court.
He argued that there is no law that says a pending bail appeal becomes a nullity when an accused has been indicted to the High Court for trial.
The lawyer said if the Court agrees with the State then it takes away the Constitutional right to challenge the correctness of any court’s decision.
In motivating their challenge, the two lawyers urged the court to look at whether this becomes a Constitutional matter or not.
Prosecutors said the application was hostile, threatening the judge to make a favourable decision or else they would seek leave to approach the Constitutional Court, yet the application is still pending.
However, in reserving his judgment, Justice Kwenda said Mpofu and Chimombe are in custody not because they were denied bail but because the magistrate has committed them for trial at the High Court.
Online Reporter