A HARARE-BASED lawyer, Tawanda Zvobgo, has been sucked into a saga involving High Court judge Justice Webster Chinamhora after he allegedly got entangled in the case without the knowledge of parties to a disputed judgement.
Balwearie Holdings (Pvt) Ltd managing director Believe Gutu has since written to the Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ) to investigate Zvobgo’s conduct.
Gutu also said that they had suffered great prejudice due to the alleged misconduct and corrupt activities by Zvobgo.
LSZ spokesperson Richard Chidza confirmed that the society had received the complaint. “We can, indeed, confirm receipt of the said complaint. It will go through our processes and parties will be updated on progress. Unfortunately, we cannot comment any further as this maybe prejudicial to the matter,” he said.
Chidza also confirmed that law firms facing such allegations are given an initial 14 days to respond and 10 days thereafter before a determination is handed out.
Gutu alleged that Zvobgo and Justice Chinamhora had made suspicious phone calls before the judgement was made.
Justice Chinamhora had allegedly handed the judgment before the case was heard or argued.
He also questioned why Zvobgo wrote a letter defending the judge in a case as soon as Balwearie Holdings (Pvt) Ltd filed a complaint against Justice Chinamhora.
Justice Chinamhora and former Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Martin Makonese were in February this year given 10 days to show cause why tribunals should not be established to investigate their reported acts of misconduct.
There are four cases before the judge involving Gutu’s company while the lawyer’s firm Zvobgo Attorneys did not represent any parties in the cases.
Zvobgo and his firm, according to the complaint, did not file any assumption of agency representing anyone in the case.
By operation of the law, Gutu argued, Zvobgo and his firm had no right of audience before the judge in the four cases.
“This is so because Rule 9 of the High Court Rules 2021, provides for renunciation of agency and assumption of agency as a way of regulating the representation of parties such that the court and everyone concerned know which legal practitioner they are dealing with at every stage,” Gutu said in his complaint.
He said on October 17 this year, their lawyer Walter Bherebende was invited to note a judgment in Justice Chinamhora’s chambers, but a lawyer from Zvobgo Attorneys was also there claiming to represent the other party.
He said Justice Chinamhora handed a judgment in a case that was not heard or argued and a party which wanted to be joined in, Sabre Services (Pvt) Ltd, was waiting for the outcome of a reserved judgment on the application.
Gutu further argued that there was also a pending application for leave to file a supplementary affidavit which should be heard before the High Court.
“On October 19, 2023, the parties were invited to appear in the judge’s chambers. As we were in the office of the judge’s clerk waiting to be escorted into the chambers, the judge’s clerk made a call to the judge, the verbatim which we reproduce as follows:- ‘Hello judge, ndine ma parties epa case ya Mr Zvobgo, ndopinda nawo here (I have parties to Mr Zvobgo’s case, can I come in with them)?
“What the above meant is that the judge regarded our case as ‘case ya Mr Zvobgo’ when Mr Zvobgo did not represent any of the parties or at least file any assumption of agency,” Gutu said.
He also added that Justice Chinamhora admitted delivering judgment in a case not heard or argued, claiming it was an error on his part.
“He suggested that he can simply just destroy the printed judgment and delete it from the system as a way of correcting the error,” he said.
Gutu also noted in the complaint that they refused Justice Chinhamora’s suggestion and were directed to return on October 20 for a ruling rescinding the judgment.
On October 20, the parties were told to come again after four days, but were not attended to when they returned to the chambers.
He said they received intelligence that the judge was conniving with Zvobgo to find ways of making sure that the “bogus” judgment stood.
“On October 25, 2023, we filed a complaint against the judge. The contents of the complaint are self-explanatory.
“As soon as we filed the complaint, Mr Tawanda Zvobgo wrote a letter addressed to the Registrar of the High Court defending the judge,” Gutu said.
He also questioned the invitation extended to Zvobgo’s firm to hand down the judgement in the absence of anything of record suggesting that they were representing any of the parties.
“Mr Zvobgo wrote a letter defending the judge despite the fact that he was not present on any appearance of the cases, (which) caused us to be sure that the judge and Mr Zvobgo were in this scandal together,” Gutu said.
He said investigations unearthed that Justice Chinamhora called Zvobgo on October 18 arguing that the call could not have been innocent after being made within hours of the judgment leading to Judiciary bribery.
Gutu also accused Zvobgo of calling another lawyer “with the intention to recruit into the ‘Chinamhora Brown Envelope Scandal’”.
“Despite the fact that there was a formal complaint against the judge, the judge called parties to his chambers on October 27, 2023, where Mr Zvobgo took advantage of Mr Bherebende’s absence and started to insult him by calling him ‘insincere’ ‘deliberately sneaky’ in Mr Bherebende’s absence. These remarks elicited a protest from Advocate Saunyama until the judge reprimanded Mr Zvobgo,” Gutu charged.
He said legal practitioners have a duty of professional courtesy towards each other, while Zvobgo considered himself above ordinary professional ethics.
Gutu also alleged that Justice Chinamhora wanted to forge a transcript of a court record and insert names of some named lawyers as if the case was heard. He said they would also present more evidence in a criminal case being handled by authorities.
“The judge was communicating with Mr Zvobgo on their personal cellphones during the time when the judge was dealing with a case whose ‘bogus judgement’ benefited Mr Zvobgo and the client he purport to represent,” Gutu said.
He also accused Zvobgo of seeking to recruit other lawyers to defend Justice Chinamhora while he also sought to reconstruct their grievances against the judge.
Gutu said Zvobgo had no right of presenting any fact on their behalf as he was not instructed to, while he also allegedly presented a wrong grievance on our behalf.
“Our grievance is that the judge delivered a judgement on a case which was not heard. We don’t know where Mr Zvobgo got the grievance which he presented on our behalf from,” he said.
