Mupasiri v President Mnangagwa & Manikai – THE CAUSE

Mr. Mupasiri, the Applicant in the matter under Case Number CCZ 34/21, naively thought that the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe headed by Chief Justice, Malaba, would be independent and impartial but the facts that are unfolding in the processing of this matter suggest the matter has already been disposed of well before the hearing set down on 9 March 2022.

THE ROLE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (AG)

It is fact that the firm, Dube, Manikai & Hwacha, DMH, has an exclusive mandate to defend this matter.

In the answering affidavit filed of record on 24 December, there was no mention of the office of the AG being involved in the matter at all.

It is the case, that the President, a creature of statute who is being sued for his failure and refusal to use his power and authority to objectively test the serious, defamatory, and scandalous allegations against him by his own lawyer, Mr. Manikai.

As shown in the analysis done by staff members of the Justice Under Rule of Law (JUROL), an initiative to hold all public and private actors accountable for their choices and actions, as of 24 December 2021, the AG was not involved in the matter:

As stated in the documents attached documents to the Twitter under the JUROL handle, in an attempt to escape the unconstitutional appointment of DMH directly by the President, it would appear that Mr. Canaan Dube of DMH, who is now the attorney acting on behalf of the President and Manikai caused the Acting AG to fraudulently misrepresent that the AG retrospectively consented to DMH to continue to act on behalf of the President.

Set out below is the constitutional provision that is in relation to the Attorney General:

DMH allegedly wrote a letter to the AG on the 12th of January 2022 when the decision to oppose the application was made prior to 24th December 2021 when the papers were issued and served on the Applicant.

Given the nature of the application, the President could have easily taken positive steps on the advice of an independent and impartial AG to investigate the veracity of the allegations made by Manikai and reflected in Mupasiri’s letter of 9 November 2021.

It must follow that after the application was served to both Respondents separately with the President’s papers having been served to the AG’s office.

It is not clear from the papers how the papers ended up with the firm, DMH, whose principal actor, Manikai is implicated in the dispute.

It is implausible that the President would have had access to the court documents and took the illegal decision of engaging DMH, an independent and private law firm without the knowledge of the AG.

Assuming this construction is correct, Manikai abused his access to the President to cause him to appoint DMH to represent both parties fully knowing that there was no relief sought against him.

Manikai’s alleged narrative is that the President is corrupt and, therefore, he had the burden to provide the facts known to him as to who was his cooperating partners in the unlawful use of public power to divest and deprive of rights that are reserved in the bill of rights to shareholders and directors of companies.

The question that must be addressed is who was Manikai’s boss who could audaciously pull this corrupt scheme off with judicial and parliamentary acquiescence.

It is Manikai who has named the key person. This person is the President.

Could his attempt in his response explicitly mean that he is fixed with the knowledge of his involvement and feels that his actions after assuming office in November 2017 cannot be impeached?

This is an interesting reading.