The Constitutional Court (ConCourt) has dismissed separate legal challenges brought up by war veterans and opposition legislator Prince Dubeko Sibanda against the controversial Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3.
In a judgment delivered this Tuesday morning, Justice Barat Patel threw out the application filed by war veterans represented by constitutional lawyer Lovemore Madhuku, ruling that the matter fell short of the critical legal requirements necessary for the ConCourt to entertain the case.
The war veterans had approached the apex court seeking to nullify the proposed constitutional amendments, arguing that the Bill was unconstitutional and designed to alter key provisions of the country's supreme law.
But Justice Patel ruled that the application failed to satisfy the threshold required for the ConCourt's intervention, resulting in its dismissal.
In a separate ruling, the court also dismissed an application by Bulawayo legislator Prince Dubeko Sibanda challenging the same Bill.
Justice Patel held that Sibanda's challenge had been brought to court prematurely.
Speaking after the ruling, Madhuku said the court had not determined the merits of the case but had instead found that the constitutional duties cited in the application were not sufficiently specific to warrant the ConCourt's direct intervention.
"The Constitutional Court has said that although the President has the duties that we had indicated in the application, those duties are not specific enough to allow the Constitutional Court to exercise its exclusive jurisdiction," Madhuku said.
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He said the court's finding effectively meant the matter should first be heard by the High Court before potentially making its way to the apex court through the normal appeal process.
"What this means is that the application ought to be lodged in a lower court such as the High Court. The High Court can determine those issues and then it goes up to the Constitutional Court through the normal processes of appeals and so forth," he said.
