Masunda wades into Zanu PF fights

By The NewsDay | Jan. 31, 2015 | 2 Min read

Legal expert and former Harare mayor Muchadeyi Masunda yesterday waded into the Zanu PF fights accusing the party’s secretary for legal affairs Patrick Chinamasa of failing to properly advise fellow politburo members about the glaring flaws in the disciplinary tribunal tasked to deal with the “errant” former secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa.

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Masunda said, as a lawyer, Chinamasa should have picked up the flaws in the composition of the tribunal and advised accordingly. He said the committee was fatally flawed and heavily compromised to guarantee a fair hearing for Mutasa.

The Zanu PF politburo on Wednesday appointed a six-member tribunal comprising of chairperson Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko, Women’s League secretary Grace Mugabe, Chinamasa (secretary for legal affairs), national political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere, secretary for security Kembo Mohadi and Youth League secretary Pupurai Togarepi to grill Mutasa for alleged misconduct.

The party accuses Mutasa of publicly denouncing its December congress resolutions and taking the matter to Sadc and the African Union in a bid to have the resolutions nullified. The Headlands MP has also threatened to take Zanu PF to court for allegedly holding an illegal congress.

Said Masunda: “The composition of the disciplinary tribunal which has been put together to deal with the case of Didymus Noel Edwin Mutasa (DNEM) is fatally flawed in that it includes individuals who have rendered themselves ineligible to serve on a body of this nature for the simple reason that they have had occasion to excoriate DNEM in both the print and electronic media during the last couple of weeks-viz (namely) PAC (Patrick Anthony Chinamasa) himself, Saviour Kasukuwere and, of course, the irrepressible Grace Ntombizodwa Mugabe, née Marufu (GNM).

“If they choose to go full steam ahead, as Zanu PF spokesperson Simon Khaya Moyo (SK) was at pains to say at a recent Press conference, then whatever decision is made by that disciplinary tribunal will definitely be at risk of being set aside by the High Court of Zimbabwe on review at the obvious instance of DNEM.”

He added: “By the way, the High Court has inherent jurisdiction to review, at the behest of any aggrieved person, a decision made against that person by any judicial or quasi-judicial body in Zimbabwe. The High Court won’t even bother delving into the merits of the case because DNEM would not, even in the eyes of the proverbial reasonable passenger in the Mbare commuter omnibus, have received a fair hearing. PAC, SK and GNM will have an uphill battle to convince the High Court that they were not biased against DNEM ab initio (from the start).”