JUROL INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM – IS MR PARDON GAMBAKWE AUTHENTIC OR FAKE?

Zimbabwe is a divided community of human inhabitants.

It has been observed that what divides human beings in any community is not their humanity which in itself is indivisible but lack of shared understanding that can be illiteracy inspired.

The social media and its seductive nature instead of helping to bridge the known divides is but an integral strategy of building walls between people.

The propensity to hallucinate and pontificate has no limits with the democratization of the keyboard that has provided no limits to agenda seeking and falsehoods peddlers to define and shape a new media personality and character that is not quality focused but a menacing weapon against the truth.

After watching a video produced by Mr. Pardon Gambakwe under the title MNANGAGWA RESPONDS TO MAWERE https://youtu.be/WS3ZzRrWIl8, I was compelled to investigate the facts and circumstances regarding the application of Mr. Tichaona Mupasiri’s that was launched on 17 December 2021. This is a developing story which to members of the Justice Under Rule of Law (JUROL) public awareness campaign is aimed at broadening and deepening media excellence as a vehicle to promote inclusivity in Zimbabwe.

From what is in the public domain and reflected in Mupasiri’s application, he is a self-actor and the sole applicant with the Respondents cited as President of Zimbabwe first, to account on his conduct per the provisions of sections 167(2)d and (3) alongside section 90 and Mr. Manikai second and only to assist the court in its deliberations or determinations.

Mr. Mutumwa Mawere is neither an Applicant nor a Respondent in this matter.

I then was reminded by another JUROL member who watched what is a deplorable piece of journalism, whose finding was that the papers hosted on Gambakwe Media online site clearly show that Mupasiri is the Applicant under Case Number 34/21.

Mr. Manyati said: “I was particularly concerned that I could have missed something and there could possibly have existed another application under the same case reference that Mr. Gambakwe could have relied upon to inform his broadcast.

I had no choice but to check with both Mr. Mawere and Mr. Mupasiri to help clarify this matter.

Mr. Mawere indicated that someone had brought the existence of the video some 20 hours after it was flighted and confirmed that he was neither an applicant nor a respondent in the matter.

He informed me that Mr. Gambakwe had reached out to him on 20 April in response to a thread Mr. Mawere had shared with him regarding the litigation.

He shared with me a thread to this effect with Mr. Gambakwe that I share in its entirety below:

“[4/20, 8:44 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: I dont understand why you can not let this go
[4/20, 8:44 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: And start afresh
[4/20, 8:44 AM] mdmawere1: Good morning
[4/20, 8:45 AM] mdmawere1: Have you read or you are advising without reading?
[4/20, 8:49 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: I have read
[4/20, 8:50 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: You sent someone to serve the President
[4/20, 8:50 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: And they were blocked
[4/20, 8:52 AM] mdmawere1: Are you aware that the President filed his affidavit yesterday?
[4/20, 8:53 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: No
[4/20, 8:54 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: I am more interested in qhat you do
[4/20, 8:54 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: Please send me all the affidavits
[4/20, 9:31 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: Thank you
[4/20, 9:37 AM] mdmawere1: Let me know if you need any further information.
[4/20, 9:39 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: Please send me the original applications
[4/20, 9:40 AM] mdmawere1: Do you know Mr. Mupasiri who launched the first application?
[4/20, 9:49 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: This guy
[4/20, 9:49 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: He is your person
[4/20, 9:50 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: 😀
[4/20, 9:54 AM] mdmawere1: I wish I could own a person. He is his own man hence I wanted him to contact him in case you may have questions and you can determine for yourself if he is his own man.
[4/20, 9:56 AM] mdmawere1: Not this one. Professor Tichaona Mupasiri with a U after M.
[4/20, 10:16 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: Please send me his affidavit and yours
[4/20, 10:16 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: In all the cases
[4/20, 10:16 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: I will call him once I have read through
[4/20, 10:17 AM] mdmawere1: I am on my way to Zambia hence I wanted you to connect with him.
[4/20, 10:26 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: OK
[4/20, 10:48 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: He is not responding
[4/20, 10:58 AM] mdmawere1: He is in Zim. Perhaps it may be network issues or ZESA.
[4/20, 11:22 AM] Pardon Gambakwe: He has sent
[4/20, 11:22 AM] mdmawere1: Great.”

Based on the above, it cannot be disputed that at 8:44 am, Mr. Gambakwe said to Mawere that he did not understand why Mawere could not let this go yet the matter in question had its owner in the name of Mr. Mupasiri.

He offered Mr. Mawere unsolicited advice that he must start afresh.

Mr. Mawere despite the provocation and personalization of a matter in the public domain, by posing this question: “Have you read or you are advising without reading?”

It was indeed surprising that Mr. Gambakwe responded saying: “I have read.”

In a condescending manner, Mr. Gambakwe asserted boldly that: “You sent someone to serve the President,” suggesting that Mupasiri had no interest in the matter.

He then concluded strangely with any regard for the facts in the matter and the reality that many Zimbabweans have an interest in the matter, as follows: “And they were blocked,” when no facts existed that the application was blocked which means if the application was blocked, then nothing will be before the court, but this is not what the reality on the ground is.

Any reasonable person possessed with common sense would find it astonishing that an application that never was served by the Sheriff on President on 20 December 2021 after issue on 17 December 2021 could be opposed by the President on 24 December, 2021 without the court being furnished with a version by the President how he got to know of the application between its date of issuance of this application and the decision to oppose the application.

What would be of concern to any independent and impartial journalist who is true to his profession is who made the decision that Mupasiri’s application must be opposed.

President Mnangangwa who has under oath stated in court proceedings launched by Mr. Mawere in April 2022 and not in 2021 under Case Number CCZ 27/22 stated as follows:
a. “I also note that much has been said about my representation by Dube, Manikai and Hwache (DMH) law as my legal practitioners in this matter.
b.I am aware that the Attorney General who is appointed to represent my office in such matters is also allowed in terms of the law to delegate his functions to a private law firm.
c.In this matter, the Attorney General has delegated his functions to DMH, the law firm, given the history of the matter and the nature of the various vexatious applications filed on the same or related subject matter.
d.Accordingly, all fanciful allegations Applicants (although in this matter, Mr. Mawere is the only Applicant) make case against DMH’s involvement as my attorneys of choice are denied as if specifically traversed.
e.The DMH law firm is the subject matter expert in all respects.”

It is astonishing that when Mawere asked Gambakwe whether he was aware that the President had filed his opposing papers in response to the allegation that with respect to the involvement of the AG in relation to the Mupasiri application, the President had breached his oath by directly engaging DMH to act in an application without the knowledge and involvement of the AG.

In terms of s114 of the Constitution, the AG is vested with the duty to handle all civil and constitutional litigations on behalf of the government of Zimbabwe.

From the papers before the Court in relation to the Mupasiri matter, there is no facts supporting the allegation by the President that it was the AG who outsourced the legal work to DMH to act in the matter.

It is not in dispute that it was Mupasiri who on 27 December 2021 alerted DMH that the authority for the President to oppose his application was not contained in the opposition papers and all he needed was for the President to place before Court, the facts related to how he knew of the existence of the application when no service was effected on him or the AG.

DMH was served with the application by Mupasiri in person on 17 December 2021 and service was accepted.

This service was only in respect of Manikai who was cited as the Second Respondent on the matter.

Mr. Mupasiri said that he was surprised to receive a letter from the Registrar of the CCZ court informing him that a Presiding Judge had directed that before he could answer to the President’s opposing affidavit using the agency of DMH and not the AG, he was required to file his heads of argument by 26 January 2022 for the matter that had already been set down for hearing on 9 March 2022.

It was at this point that Mupasiri whose letter to DMH of 27 December 2021, had challenged the glaringly missing explanation of the invisible role of the AG in processing the identification and engagement of DMH to handle the matter on the President’s behalf.

Alive to the reality of him being forced by a Presiding Judge, who in terms of the constitution, is compelled to comply with the provisions of s68(1) that his or her conduct must pass the test of impartiality and independence, Mupasiri was compelled to launch an interlocutory application on 25 January 2022 challenging the authority of the President to litigate given that in his opposing affidavit filed in judicial proceedings, the President knew all the facts surrounding the involvement of the firm DMH in the matter and the absurdity of the proposition that the AG was involved in this matter.

Mupasiri has asserted boldly that he was faced with invidious choice to comply with the directives issued by the Presiding Judge compelling him to ignore his complaint without affording the President an opportunity to explain the miraculous version that the AG who had no knowledge of his own involvement could possibly have consented to a nullity.

Mupasiri believed that by formally requesting the President to his confidence, he would willingly comply with providing facts supporting the version that the AG using powers reserved for his office would provide his own version that the President had not breached his oath by intentionally side stepping the AG on a matter in which his relationship with DMH and in particular was one of the issues that the court was compelled to consider in determining whether the President’s relationship with Manikai to advance his ascendency to the position of President was a critical issue.

In light of the above, I would have expected any journalist worth his salt to educate and inform the public with a correct statement of the problem that this issue of the involvement of the AG in processing the prosecution of the President’s opposition.

It is chilling that the President in his opposing affidavit asserted that his response was guided by advice provider by his counsel.

What the President failed to disclose under oath is who the legal advisor was and what was the role of the AG in relation to the conveyancing?

Mupasiri had expressed his disappointment that his interlocutory application was dismissed without being heard by the Court.

On the contrary, the Respondents were exempted from filing their own versions of what happened in relation to his complaint and the worrisome development in which the President was not subjected to the kind of scrutiny to establish the truth on the authority question.

Mr. Mupasiri acknowledges that he was left with troubling questions as to whether the apex court had jurisdiction to exempt the President from being subjected to the rules that ordinary folk are subjected to especially having regard to the nature and context of the Mupasiri application.

The President occupies a position of public trust and is therefore a public property who is subject to public trust.

I was left bewildered by the response of Gambakwe, a purported journalist who said after admitting to Mawere that he had not read the President’s sworn statement: “I am more interested in what you do,” as if Mawere should be accountable to him.

This was followed by Gambakwe saying: “Please send me all the affidavits.”

What are the key issues that arise from the above?”

For me it is self-evident that the kind of journalism that informs Gambakwe’s practice is not concerned to hold public office bearers like the President accountable.

The President has given a version that the AG hired DMH but there are no facts supporting this version.

Peer reviews of journalists and their outputs can never be prejudice to anyone who is interested in using this fourth state for good.