THE High Court of Zimbabwe has temporarily halted the rape trial of Prophetic Healing and Deliverance Ministries founder Walter Magaya, which was set to proceed at the Magistrates Court.
High Court judge Justice Tawanda Chitapi granted the order following an urgent chamber application by Magaya seeking to stop the trial pending a review of a decision by magistrate Esthere Chivasa to have the matter heard in a Victim Friendly Court.
He is accused of raping seven of his female congregants.
The trial which has been stopped involves four complainants and the one which was being heard before Chivasa.
Magaya had protested the move, arguing that the trial should be conducted in an open court.
The review application challenging Chivasa’s ruling is yet to be fully heard by the High Court.
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In his brief order, Justice Chitapi ruled that the trial should not proceed until the review application has been determined.
“The proceedings in the magistrates court in case number CRB HRE R 139/26 are temporarily stayed pending the determination of the application to review those proceedings filed before this court in case number HCH 953/26 on 27 February 2026,” he said.
The judge also set timelines for the filing of papers in the review matter.
“The first and second respondents shall, if advised, file their response to the application by March 13, 2026.
“The applicant shall file his answering affidavit if so advised by March 20, 2026, and shall file heads of argument by March 27, 2026.
“Any of the respondents who has opposed the application shall file heads of argument by April 7, 2026.”
Through his lawyers Everson Chatambudza and Admire Rubaya, Magaya is also seeking the removal of Chivasa from presiding over his trial and wants the proceedings to start afresh before a different magistrate.
In the application, Magaya cited Chivasa and the Prosecutor-General of Zimbabwe as respondents.
He accused the magistrate of dismissing his request without fully hearing his arguments and of relying on the State’s outline without verifying the allegations.
“The first respondent openly confessed to relying on the state outline, a document of mere allegations, and to ‘believing’ the State counsel’s word without independent verification, without interviewing the witnesses herself, and without any evidentiary foundation,” Magaya said in his papers.
“This is the flimsy basis upon which the first respondent ordered that my trial be held in a Victim Friendly Court.
“So the respondent merely believed the mere say-so of State counsel in making a decision that fundamentally altered the course of my trial? That is not adjudication; that is abdication.
“It is shocking, profoundly disturbing, constitutionally reckless, and a grave miscarriage of justice. To describe it as astonishing would be an understatement it is a judicial collapse into blind faith.”
Magaya is asking the court to declare the magistrate’s decision null and void and insists that the trial be conducted in open court.
The development comes shortly after Chivasa dismissed another application by the man of cloth seeking referral of his case to the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe, ruling that it lacked merit.
That ruling was delivered while the High Court was sitting to hear Magaya’s urgent chamber application, despite his lawyers being present in the higher court.
Chivasa ruled that the High Court proceedings had no bearing on her decision.
One of the matters Magaya is facing is also before Harare magistrate Francis Mapfumo, where Magaya is seeking referral of the case to the Constitutional Court, arguing that prosecutors are continuing with the case despite some complainants withdrawing their allegations.
A determination in that matter is still pending.