SW Radio Africa news - The Independent Voice of Zimbabwe
A new Constitutional Court application has been drafted, containing input from both the MDC formations and ZANU PF, amid reports that Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa has not yet withdrawn the application he unilaterally submitted on Tuesday.
Instead Chinamasa, through government lawyer Fred Gijima, on Wednesday filed an urgent chamber application seeking the court to treat his first application as an urgent matter.
This is despite the fact that Chinamasa met Tendai Biti and Welshman Ncube on Wednesday night and drafted a consensus position on a fresh application, as directed by party principals who met Wednesday. This application will only be submitted to the court on Monday.
The principals will meet again on Friday to discuss the application, the election roadmap and the post SADC summit report. The Wednesday meeting was inconclusive as President Robert Mugabe had to leave early to attend a Politburo meeting.
MDC spokesman Nhlanhla Dube confirmed to SW Radio Africa that the Principals will meet again this Friday to finish their business, following the Maputo summit that ordered the parties to another round of talks to work on an extension of the July 31st poll date.
A highly placed source in the MDC-T told us that as far as they were concerned the new draft that was compiled by Biti, Chinamasa and Ncube is the one that the court should consider and not the one submitted by ZANU PF.
Advocate Thabani Mpofu, a lawyer representing Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who is cited as a respondent in the application filed by Chinamasa, said they were surprised that the Justice Minister still wanted to forge ahead with the hearing on the first application, despite being ordered to withdraw it.
Gijima, the government lawyer, told journalists that his instructions from Chinamasa were to go ahead with the matter. However Chris Mhike, another lawyer representing Tsvangirai, explained that he has been informed that once the fresh application is lodged with the court on Monday, the first application submitted by Chinamasa will be withdrawn and the case will still be heard as an urgent matter on Wednesday next week.