FORMER Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) senior economist, Philton Makena has won a High Court appeal where he was challenging his suspension on charges of leaking the apex bank’s de-dollarisation strategy.
Makena was suspended in 2021.
The document indicated that RBZ was planning on a roadmap to phase out the use of the United States dollar over five years.
In 2022, a Harare magistrate ordered him to perform 240 hours of community service after being found guilty of leaking the document to unauthorised persons.
He appealed the sentence at the High Court.
High Court judges Justices Pisirai Kwenda and Benjamin Chikowero then ruled in his favour.
In his appeal, Makena, through his lawyers, argued that the State had failed to prove that he was guilty.
Makena also argued that he could not be charged for sharing a document which was in the public domain.
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“It also logically follows that when information is already in the public domain, section 60 of the Act does not apply because the information would have ceased to be confidential or secret already,” he submitted.
“To extend or stretch the import of section 60 to information which is already in the public domain will be an interpretation which is grossly unreasonable within the import of section 38 (1) (a) of the High Court Act and will also be contrary to the presumption that the legislature never intended an unreasonable result.
“This is particularly so because when information is in the public domain, the bank no longer has control on it and the purpose to have such information a secret would have ceased or been defeated.”
