Lawyers speak on Limpopogate

Eddie Chikamhi Senior Sports Reporter—

GUILTY or not guilty, to lift or not to lift the bans? That is the question the ZIFA board are currently seized with following a judgment by Harare magistrate Lucy Mungwari this week which acquitted former employees Henrietta Rushwaya and Nation Dube and ex-board member Edzai Kasinauyo of any wrongdoing in the Limpopogate match-fixing scandal.The trio is among the five people banned by the national football association earlier this year for their roles in an alleged match-fixing cartel targeting the Warriors’ 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers and game in the South Africa Premiership.

The ZIFA board are set to bring to the table the judgment by the Harare magistrates court as they seek to tie up the loose ends after maintaining that the bans imposed on the trio will stand.

ZIFA legal advisor Itai Ndudzo said the court ruling was inconsequential to the decisions that were carried by the executive committee and endorsed at the Congress.

He said ZIFA did their investigations in the matter and came up with their verdict and what was happening at the courts had no effect on the processes at the Association even though they were the complainants in the criminal case.

However, a Harare lawyer who chose not to be named, yesterday said ZIFA blundered when they failed to give the accused a fair trial.

There is even an expectation that FIFA will pronounce judgment on the cases soon after sources told The Herald the world football governing body were waiting for the conclusion of the criminal case.

FIFA have not endorsed the bans which were imposed by ZIFA.

“What ZIFA are saying is not correct because they didn’t subject the affected individuals to due processes as provided for by their own constitution and that makes the whole process flawed,” said the lawyer.

“In fact it was only Nation Dube who was taken to a tribunal and that was after they had found out that the case was crumbling.

“So these guys can still challenge ZIFA’s position and can use the records from the magistrates’ court to prove that they were acquitted of any wrongdoing by a court of law.

“The other avenue could be to take the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland, but I disagree with that because the process itself was flawed because no due procedure was taken in coming up with the bans.

“ZIFA infringed on the basic principles of justice, the right to be heard, the right to a fair trial and so on.”

However, another legal practitioner Advocate Tawanda Zhuwarara said ZIFA could be vindicated to maintain the bans if they followed their internal judicial systems and dragged the individuals before their disciplinary committee.

Zhuwarara said although the trio could have won their independence at the courts on the basis of lack of evidence to show that they committed the crime, ZIFA could still find them guilty using the same evidence.

He said the difference in the threshold of evidence in criminal and in civil law has a huge bearing on the outcome of the cases.

The criminal law has a high threshold of proof which makes it difficult for the magistrates to convict an accused person.

Zhuwarara said the magistrate need not have an iota of doubt, even if he or she thinks the person committed the offence, while in civil cases the evidence that shows the most probable scenario will win the case.

“The threshold of evidence at the criminal law is very high. It is designed to make it very difficult to convict someone unless there is no other element which may bring doubt,” he said.

“The judge or the magistrate has to be convinced beyond reasonable doubt that a person is guilt, he has to be sure before making a conviction whereas in civil law the threshold of evidence is much lower.

“In civil cases, as in what can happen to such labour cases, they use what is called the balance of probability which can allow an employer to weigh the available evidence either convict or acquit on the basis of the strength of that evidence.

“So, in this case, there was no sufficient proof to convict them at the criminal court, but the same evidence could be enough for ZIFA to say they are guilty.

“ZIFA, as long as they followed proper disciplinary procedures, could be right to maintain their decisions. If procedure was not followed then that’s another issue.

“But what these affected guys can do is to proceed through the football processes, either approaching FIFA or the Court of Arbitration for Sport.”