King Misuzulu Zulu praying during his coronation at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban on October 29, 2022, during the handover of the official certificate of recognition. (Photo by RAJESH JANTILAL/AFP via Getty Images)
Zulu King MisuZulu ka Zwelithini should be stopped from making any decisions as monarch, including on the Ingonyama Trust Board (ITB), while there is still a legal case pending against him in the Pretoria high court.
This was among the arguments raised in the Pietermaritzburg high court over two days this week in an urgent case that his uncle, Prince Mbonisi kaBhekuzulu — the half-brother of the late King Goodwill Zwelithini ka Bhekuzulu — and five other family members filed against MisuZulu. They question his right to the throne and are concerned about his control of the ITB. The trust oversees three million hectares of traditional land in KwaZulu-Natal.
President Cyril Ramaphosa as well as the minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs, the minister of agriculture, land reform and rural development, the KwaZulu-Natal premier, the ITB and its chairperson, Siyamundisa Vilakazi, are listed among the 21 respondents in court papers that run to more than 850 pages.
The latest court matter comes after Mbonisi joined an initial challenge to MisuZulu’s recognition as the sovereign that Queen Sibongile Zulu and Princess Ntandoyenkosi Zulu filed in the Pretoria high court last year.
MisuZulu and the ITB have opposed the latest matter and the king also filed a counter application against Mbonisi in which he called for the court to declare his uncle a “vexatious litigant” and for certain defamatory and unproven allegations to be removed from the court record, a request the court partially granted in April.
Mbonisi approached the court to apply for an urgent interim interdict in November 2023 to stop the Ingonyama Trust and Vilakazi “from unlawfully dissipating the financial resources of the Ingonyama Trust in support of the personal interests” of MisuZulu. It also aimed to stop the government respondents, including the premier, from “unlawfully spending public funds” to support the king. In addition, the premier had allegedly been shown to be “acting under the influence and pressure” of MisuZulu.
“The provincial government has been offering financial and administrative assistance to the seventh respondent [MisuZulu] on the basis that it recognises him as the lawfully recognised king of amaZulu kingdom,” Mbonisi argued in court papers.
“The stance of the government respondents is untenable because they are aware that the Zulu royal family, which is the only body with the cultural and statutory authority to identify and announce a Zulu king for the Zulu kingdom is challenging the lawfulness of the decision of the first respondent [the president] in recognising the seventh respondent.”
An image from the Pietermaritzburg high court during the case heard against King Misuzulu ka Zwelithini
He further argued that it was an “irresponsible, irrational and unreasonable” exercise of public power to ignore the legal proceedings that challenge the lawfulness of the decision to recognise him as king.
“Pending the outcome of the litigation … we seek orders stopping the seventh respondent from conducting the duties of a Zulu monarch that are related to and are exclusively reserved for the king, including those which pertain to the Ingonyama Trust,” Mbonisi said.
He said interim relief was “necessary and important to protect the finances, land and the resources of the kingdom of amaZulu from being dissipated and possibly sold to the highest bidder by the seventh respondent and those who support him in the Ingonyama Trust Board”.
“Unless an interdict is granted … there is a real and ongoing irreparable harm to the land and the financial resources of the kingdom of amaZulu with the consequence that the constitutional rights of the Zulu people … are violated,” Mbonisi added.
In his own court papers, MisuZulu argued that the matter should be struck off the roll as “vexatious” in terms of the Vexatious Proceedings Act 3 of 1956, “by which it is meant frivolous, improper, instituted without sufficient ground, to serve solely as an annoyance to the defendant”.
He also claimed that Mbonisi did not have the authority to act on behalf of the royal family and thus “lacks locus standi”.
Advocate Nikiwe Nyathi, representing Mbonisi, told the court this week that the application was urgent and that the applicants had provided evidence that the current ITB board had been unlawfully appointed and that there had been “unauthorised expenditure” of trust funds by Misuzulu.
But advocate Johnny Klopper, representing the king, told the court that the matter was not urgent and there was no evidence that there had been any authorised expenditure by MisuZulu.
On Friday Judge Peter Olsen reserved judgment in the matter to an undisclosed date.