Ex-MP savours fine victory

News
FORMER Lupane West MDC-T legislator Njabuliso Mguni, who on Friday won the court order compelling the police to release his vehicle they impounded after he refused to pay spot fine, was yesterday ecstatic, saying the court order was a lesson that traffic police officers have all along been acting illegally.

FORMER Lupane West MDC-T legislator Njabuliso Mguni, who on Friday won the court order compelling the police to release his vehicle they impounded after he refused to pay spot fine, was yesterday ecstatic, saying the court order was a lesson that traffic police officers have all along been acting illegally.

SILAS NKALA STAFF REPORTER

Mguni had through Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) lawyer Lizwe Jamela filed an urgent chamber application at the Bulawayo High Court seeking an order compelling the police to release his car and declare their actions as unlawful.

On Friday Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Andrew Mutema ruled that the impounding of Mguni’s vehicle was unlawful and ordered the police to release the car to him after he has produced the car’s registration book.

Yesterday, Mguni expressed gratitude to ZLHR and the Southern Eye for exposing the police unlawful conduct along the roads, saying the court order granted to him could be a lesson to law enforcement agents that they are not a law unto themselves.

“I got the car on Friday, thanks guys for the tremendous support and encouragement I got from you and the public,” he said.

“Please send my regards to the members of the public.

“I hope the message has been driven home and the police will stop their madness and the public has been conscientised enough concerning these things.”

When Mguni went to collect the vehicle, his lawyer, Jamela, said police officers raised some issues which were not talked about in court, such as claims that the former legislator should produce insurance documents and that they had condemned his car’s brakes, an issue that was not even written in the paper they had given to him when they impounded his car.

Jamela had to engage them at length, advising them that their refusal would be considered contempt of the court order.

He told them that whenever they were any new issues they were to raise, they would have to go through the courts so as not be seen as defying the order.

In his founding affidavit accompanying the application, Mguni had cited the officer-in-charge traffic section Bulawayo district as the first respondent, officer commanding Bulawayo police and Home Affairs minister Kembo Mohadi as the second and third respondents respectively.