Prosecutor-General (PG) Johannes Tomana’s bid seeking to appear before a retired or foreign judge in his disciplinary hearing being instituted by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) went up in smoke yesterday after the application was dismissed by the High Court.
BY CHARLES LAITON
The PG filed an urgent chamber application two months ago seeking to block the JSC from instituting proceedings for his removal from office on allegations of abuse of office and incompetence.
However, Justice Lavender Makoni yesterday threw out Tomana’s application for referral of the matter to the Constitutional Court in which he had raised various points, chief among them the constitutionality of him appearing before a sitting judge of the High Court.
Through his lawyers, Tomana had filed an urgent chamber application seeking to bar the JSC from instituting any disciplinary proceedings against him, arguing the move by the JSC was unconstitutional.
However, before the hearing of his urgent chamber application, Tomana’s lawyers wrote to the court requesting that a foreign or retired judge be appointed to deal with his matter, since the serving judges belonged to the same JSC whose head, Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, was the one who had written him a letter.
The dismissal of the application means his urgent chamber application to stop the JSC from suspending him or embarking on the process leading to his possible removal from office will now be heard by Justice Makoni.
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Tomana was early this year served with show cause letters from the JSC seeking his views on his suitability to hold the office of the PG given his defiance of two court orders and his subsequent conviction on contempt of court.
The PG is also out on bail for criminal abuse of office as a public officer or alternatively defeating or obstructing the course of justice after he allegedly ordered the release of Solomon Makumbe and Silas Pfupa, who were accused of plotting to petrol-bomb Alpha and Omega Dairy Farm in Mazowe in January this year.
