adminTendai Rupapa Senior Court Reporter
ACTING Chief Registrar of the superior courts Munamato Mutevedzi has said Telecel Zimbabwe can go ahead and ask for a private prosecution certificate from the Prosecutor General’s Office to bring the company’s shareholder Jane Mutasa before the courts.Mutevedzi said this while responding to a letter written by lawyers representing Telecel Zimbabwe (Private) Limited in the matter in which they want a certificate for the private prosecution of Mutasa.
The lawyers are accusing Prosecutor General Johannes Tomana of allegedly defying a Constitutional Court order directing his office to issue a certificate for the private prosecution of Mutasa.
The Telecel lawyers had written to Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku asking him to avail the written judgment which Tomana told them he wanted to see first before acting on the court order.
But Mutevedzi said in a letter in response to the request that the Constitutional Court order was enough for the PG to act since its effectiveness did not depend on the reasons for judgment.
Mutasa is accused of swindling the company of more than $1.7 million of airtime recharge vouchers.
Telecel lawyer Isaiah Mureriwa wrote to the PG’s lawyers Mambosasa Legal Practitioners asking them to advise their client to act on the Constitutional Court ruling in favour of the mobile phone operator.
But the Prosecutor-General’s lawyer Alex Mambosasa said his client was still waiting for reasons of the Constitutional Court’s decision for him to take appropriate action on the matter.
Mureriwa wrote another letter to Chief Justice Chidyausiku through the Chief Registrar requesting him to deliver the written judgment.
“This matter was argued on the 8th of October 2014 in the Constitutional Court and the Chief Justice delivered an ex-tempo judgment in favour of the respondent. The Chief Justice indicated that a written judgment was to be delivered in due course. The applicant has refused to comply with the Supreme Court judgment arguing it will only do so once it has considered the reasoning of the Constitutional Court.
“We are instructed to request that the written judgment be delivered as soon as practicable and convenient to the court,” read part of the lawyers’ letter dated October 12, 2014.
In his response, Mutevedzi said the judgment would be delivered at the earliest convenience, adding that the validity of the Constitutional Court order did not depend on the reasons for judgment.
“The honourable Chief Justice does not accept that the validity of the Constitutional Court order is dependent on the reasons for judgment,” he said.
“A court order is a court order and does not depend for its validity on the reasons for such order.”
He added: “In light of the above, it is entirely up to your client as to what legal recourse it considers advisable to take.”
The Constitutional Court last month upheld a Supreme Court decision that gave Telecel the green light to privately prosecute Mutasa.
The PG’s office was given a five-day ultimatum to issue the certificate.
Mutasa was arrested in 2010 along with the company’s commercial director, Naguib Omar, for allegedly stealing airtime vouchers worth $1.7 million.
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