Ncube wins citizenship case
By Violet Gonda
25 January 2007
The Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede was ordered to reinstate Trevor Ncube’s citizenship by the High Court on Thursday. The newspaper publisher of The Independent and The Standard was denied a new passport last year on the grounds that he was a Zambian.
Reacting to the news Ncube said the Attorney General’s office, who were representing the Registrar General, informed the court that they were abandoning Mudede’s case. Ncube's lawyer Stenford Moyo had presented evidence to the court on Wednesday showing that Ncube was of Zambian ancestry but had never taken out Zambian citizenship.
Ncube said: “The Registrar General has been humiliated beyond anyway of describing it. If you see the order that has been handed down by the courts, this is total humiliation. The judge said he is totally disappointed by the conduct of the Registrar General.”
High Court Judge Chinembiri Bhunu said there was no legal justification to deny Ncube citizenship and ordered Mudede to give Ncube a passport and not to interfere with his use of it. He said: "It is accordingly ordered that (Ncube) is a citizen of Zimbabwe by birth ... the withdrawal or cancellation of his citizenship is unlawful, null, void and of no force or effect.”
The newspaper publisher said: “Justice Bhunu also ordered that the Minister of Home Affairs and the Registrar General should pay my case on a higher scale to show the court’s displeasure regarding Mr Tobaiwa’s conduct in this whole matter.”
The newspaper publisher said ‘it’s time that incompetent bullying public servants like Mudede are taught a lesson and must be made to pay from their own pockets for wasting people’s time.’
When asked if this was the end of the matter, Ncube responded by saying this is Zimbabwe where authorities can duck and dive. But he said; “If he (Mudede) does that, I am just going to go for him and take him to the cleaners as far as contempt of court is concerned.”
There was no comment forthcoming from the Registrar General’s office.
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