Fight over gold mine intensifies

The Constitutional Court (ConCourt) will hear the much-hyped Makaha mining wrangle where a Mudzi-based gold mining company is seeking to overturn a recent Supreme Court ruling.

Milmath Security Private Limited represented by its director Mathias Madziwanzira argued that the judgement favoured the respondent, businessman Prosper Machekera as the owner of Radnor 58.

In its chamber application for leave to appeal filed at the ConCourt, Milmath Security Private Limited represented by Madziwanzira said the Supreme Court judgment violated the right to a fair hearing, among other reasons.

“A court is obliged to give reasons for its judgment to inform the parties on its reasons for the decision.

“A failure to give reasons is an irregularity, which has the effect of vitiating the proceedings,” read the court papers.

“It can be shown, even in the absence of the court a quo’s reasons for the judgment, that the decisions of the High Court and Supreme Court are both inconsistent with, and contrary to, the constitution of the Republic of Zimbabwe.

“They are a palpable inequity and constitute a miscarriage of justice.”

“Zimbabwe is not so jurisprudentially poor as to be unable to provide a legal solution to that problem.

“Our constitution and rules are a doppelganger of the South African legal system.

“Therefore, there is every reason for Zimbabwe to take a leaf out of the South African Constitutional Court’s book.

“Applicant submits that the judgement of the Supreme Court is a ‘decision on a constitutional matter’. The fact that it does not refer to a provision of the constitution is immaterial.”

-The Standard-