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JSC demands costs of suits from Tomana

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THE Judiciary Service Commission (JSC) has demanded that Prosecutor-General Johannes Tomana pays costs of the lawsuits after the latter withdrew an urgent chamber application he filed at the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) challenging his disciplinary hearing.

THE Judiciary Service Commission (JSC) has demanded that Prosecutor-General Johannes Tomana pays costs of the lawsuits after the latter withdrew an urgent chamber application he filed at the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) challenging his disciplinary hearing.

BY CHARLES LAITON

gavel

The JSC yesterday said Tomana was at liberty to decide how his application ought to be dealt with by the courts, but was not at liberty to abandon a course of action over which the other party had already encountered wasted costs.

The JSC’s demands were in reaction to Tomana’s withdrawal of the urgent chamber application he had filed following the dismissal of another application seeking referral of the matter to the ConCourt.

“In such circumstances, if the applicant (Tomana) wishes to do an ‘about-turn’ and convert the ‘urgent application’ into an ‘ordinary application’, the applicant must do so against the sanction in the form of an appropriate order of costs in relation to the urgent application,” JSC lawyers, Kantor and Immerman said in the heads of argument filed yesterday.

The lawyers further said the court had already found that Tomana, in pursuing the ConCourt referral chamber application, acted in a manner devoid of merit.

“The first respondent (JSC) is a constitutional public body. It is funded via public funds . . . unnecessary legal costs ought not to be incurred.

“Where it is successful in litigation, it ought to recover the costs,” the lawyers said.

“Given the dire economic circumstances Zimbabwe finds itself in, the JSC is not awash with free funds or cash and has been forced to manage its meagre budget in such a way as to be able to pay legal fees arising from this urgent matter.

“It would be a miscarriage of justice and a departure from established precedent for the applicant to be allowed to convert an urgent application into an ordinary application without an adverse order of costs following the application.

“It is, therefore, respectfully submitted that if the prayer by the applicant is granted in this matter, an adverse order of costs must follow. To rule otherwise would represent a travesty of justice.”