Mthwakazi case dismissed

News
THE Bulawayo Magistrate’s Court on Friday dismissed an application for referral to the Supreme Court of the case of 23 Mthwakazi Youth Leader’s Joint Resolution activists, who are charged with criminal nuisance.

THE Bulawayo Magistrate’s Court on Friday dismissed an application for referral to the Supreme Court of the case of 23 Mthwakazi Youth Leader’s Joint Resolution activists, who are charged with criminal nuisance.

STAFF REPORTER

Mqondisi Moyo and 22 others in June, filed an application for referral of their case to the Supreme Court, where they intended to contest the constitutionality of charges laid against them.

Bulawayo magistrate Gladmore Mushove on Friday dismissed the application and remanded the case to September 24 for trial.

In dismissing the application, the magistrate said due to allegations that they had protested without notifying the regulatory authority and allegedly violated the road users’ right to free flow of traffic, they were supposed to be tried on the charges laid against them.

Their defence lawyer Dumisani Dube had submitted in court that it is enshrined in the Constitution that people or organisations have a right to demonstrate and petition authorities.

He said the charge over their demonstration violates their constitutional rights. The protesters are out of custody on $50 bail each.

Moyo and 22 others were arrested on April 8 this year while demonstrating against the Zesa move to employ 300 people from outside Bulawayo at its Insukamini substation in Emganwini.

They were initially charged with two counts, one of criminal nuisance and the another of causing an offence to persons of a particular race or region, as defined in sections 46 as read with Section 2 (v) of the third Schedule to the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act and Section 42 (2) of the same Act respectively.

The charge of causing hatred to persons of another tribe has since been dropped.

The State led by Jeremiah Mutsindikwa told the court that on April 8, Moyo and 22 others unlawfully employed means, which were likely to interfere with the ordinary comfort, convenience, peace or quiet of the public by holding an unauthorised procession, moving in the middle of the road disturbing motorists and the general public, carrying placards, flyers and a petition document denouncing Zesa Insukamini substation workers recruitment.

They allegedly held an unlawful march from Bellevue shopping complex carrying the material demanding that all Mashonaland contract employees hired by Zesa must return to their region and pave way for the people of Matabeleland, thereby publicly making a provocative statements that caused offence to a particular tribe or intended to cause such offence.