Zimbabwe’s High Court in Harare has postponed hearing Mail & Guardian chief executive Trevor Ncube’s case against the withdrawal of his Zimbabwean citizenship.
The Zimbabwean government is preventing Ncube — who publishes the Standard and the Zimbabwe Independent in that country — from renewing his passport, claiming he is not a Zimbabwean citizen. The grounds are that Ncube’s father was born in Zambia.
Ncube’s lawyer in Zimbabwe, Sternford Moyo, of the firm Scanlen and Holderness, told the M&G Online that the postponement came after ”we successfully applied to introduce into the [court] record an opinion by a Zambian advocate in response to the allegations” by Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede.
The advocate, Nchima Nchito, is an expert in Zambian law, and Moyo said ”instead of us non-Zambian lawyers arguing about the law, we asked the court to admit his opinion”.
”The effect of the opinion is to refute that [allegation] … that Mr Ncube is recognised as a Zambian citizen,” Moyo said.
He said the state asked for a postponement so it could ”reconsider its position in light of the Zambian advocate’s opinion”.
Confident
”I have approached the court for protection because I am confident that the court will apply itself to the arguments placed before it in a fair and just manner,” Ncube said in a statement to the M&G Online on Tuesday in Johannesburg before addressing a press conference on the matter.
He said he would not be travelling to Zimbabwe for the court case, as he was ”concerned that they would impound my passport”.
Ncube also said the decision by Mudede to strip him of his citizenship had rendered him ”stateless”.
Mudede’s action had interfered with his freedom of movement and he could not manage his business interests in Zimbabwe. He was also not able to visit his parents and brothers and sisters who are still in Zimbabwe.
”I am concerned that on an everyday basis many Zimbabweans of Malawian, Zambian, Mozambican, British and Australian parentage are being subjected to humiliation by the registrar general’s office,” Ncube said.
”Indeed, many less fortunate than I am have been unable to go through this process, meaning that they have been denied the right to passports, the base document symbolising citizenship.”
Ncube will ask the court to direct the home affairs minister to confirm that he is a citizen of Zimbabwe and order the registrar general to renew his passport within three days of a court order being granted.