THE Constitutional Court (ConCourt) yesterday reserved judgment in a matter where Chinese diamond mining company, Anjin Investments, was challenging its forced eviction from Chiadzwa diamond mine fields by the government.
BY CHARLES LAITON
The Chinese company last year approached the ConCourt citing infringement of its constitutional rights after the High Court dismissed its application challenging Mines minister Walter Chidakwa’s directive barring all diamond mining firms from Chiadzwa.
During the hearing, the ministry’s lawyer, Lewis Uriri urged the court to dismiss Anjin’s application, saying the mining firm had wrongly approached the court, since the matter was already disposed of by the High Court.
Uriri said Anjin did not have the right of direct access to the ConCourt, but had disguised an appeal and brought it to the superior court in the form of a constitutional application.
“The applicant does not have the right of direct access to this court since this matter is res judicata (already completed), the relief sought seeks to entrench an illegality,” he said.
“This is a disguised appeal brought as an application to this court.
“The High Court, having made a finding, which has not been appealed against to the Supreme Court or the ConCourt, applicant cannot directly approach this court … the High Court found that the special grants had lapsed and that the applicant’s operations were unlawful.
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“There are other remedies the applicant would have pursued such as appealing to the Supreme Court and seeking remittal of the matter.
“It is an abuse of the court process to purport to approach this court under section 85(1) of the Constitution.”
Uriri’s submissions were echoed by the Attorney-General’s (AG) representative, Mike Chimombe and the government diamond mining firm, Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company’s lawyer, Raphael Tsivama
Anjin’s lawyer, Thabani Mpofu said his client had the right to approach the court under the cited section of the Constitution, since there was an infringement of its rights.
Mpofu said when the High Court dealt with the matter, it had not been called upon to deal with constitutional issues, hence, his client approached the ConCourt as a court of first instance.
He said the government acted unfairly in claiming that Anjin’s mining special grants had expired.
