INDEPENDENT presidential candidate Saviour Kasukuwere has been granted temporary reprieve after the High Court struck off the roll an application for execution of a judgment granted in favour of a Zanu-PF activist who is seeking his disqualification from the presidential race.
In his application filed earlier this month, Zanu-PF activist Lovedale Mangwana said he wanted the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) to go ahead and print ballot papers without Kasukuwere’s name.
However, when the matter was heard in chambers yesterday, High Court judge Justice David Mangota removed the matter from the roll of urgent matters, ordering each party to bear its own costs.
Addressing journalists after the hearing, Kasukuwere’s lawyer Method Ndlovu said the judge indicated that he could not decide on an issue that was still before a higher court.
“The court refused to hear Mangwana and removed the matter off the roll on the basis that there is no judicial economy at all for it to hear the matter today as the Supreme Court will finally deal with it on Thursday.
“So the court was alive and aware of the fact that it is at risk of issuing an order which might be contradictory to what the Apex court of the land, the Supreme Court, will say in non-constitutional matters,” Ndlovu said.
Mangwana’s application for execution came after Kasukuwere filed a Supreme Court appeal in which he sought to reverse an earlier High Court judgment that blocked the former Zanu-PF commissar from standing in next month’s elections as a presidential candidate.
Mangwana wanted the High Court order, blocking Kasukuwere from contesting, to be executed pending the Supreme Court appeal.
Source Byo24
