Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. CCC’s self-appointed interim secretary general Sengezo Tshabangu has claimed that the recent recalls of 18 legislators are legally binding and are not affected by the Tuesday High Court judgement interdicting any further recalls.
In a statement through his lawyer Nqobani Sithole of Messrs Ncube Attorneys seen by the Chronicle, Tshabangu said the order, which was made on 14 November, has no retrospective effect. He said the recall letters were sent on 10 November.
Below is the full statement by Tshabangu lawyers issued on Tuesday:
It is common cause that the so-called CCC filed an urgent application to bar our client from acting in a certain manner. My use of the word “so-called” is deliberate.
l don’t intend to prejudice our client’s position in his opposing papers. After the applicant filed its application, we only became aware of the issued court papers late yesterday.
Today, we were advised that the matter had been set down for hearing before Justice Chitapi in Harare, and l am stationed in Bulawayo.
So, we were unable to connect to our virtual court processes, and the same challenge was true of everyone with an interest in the matter.
Nevertheless, we managed to instruct Advocate Uriri to represent our client. In the result, we had a very good engagement with all the parties involved.
We agreed on timelines to file all the necessary processes as per the Court’s attached order. It was by consent that, pending the hearing on Monday, our client should not issue out any recall letters to the speaker of Parliament, the President of the Senate or the Minister of Local Government. The reason we consented to the Court order is simply that it was logical to do so.
Now, turning to the import of the Court order; there are recall letters that were dispatched by our client last week on 10 November 2023, well before this order by consent granted today.
Those recall letters are not affected by today’s order, which was by consent. Any recall that was due and/or which has been pronounced is not subject to today’s order (the order has no retrospective effect).
The recalls announced this afternoon are not subject to a case that is already before Justice Chitapi.
The net effect of the order as per Justice Chitapi is that no further recalls should be done until the matter before the Court has been concluded and that the order was by consent because it is only logical to do so. That’s all.
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