HUNGWE
J: The
first applicant is a director in second applicant in which the first respondent
is also a co-director. The applicants seek the following interim relief:
“TERMS OF INTERIM ORDER SOUGHT
Pending
the determination of the application for review in HC 46/15, the following
order is granted:
1. The
1st respondent be and is hereby barred from the workplace and
premises of the 2nd applicant unless he has followed prescribed
legal means provided under the Labour laws of Zimbabwe.
2. The
ruling in MC 30523/14 be and is hereby suspended from operation pending the
hearing of the application for review.
3. The
1st respondent be and is hereby interdicted from causing the breach
of the peace at the premises of the 2nd Applicant, McMeekan Founders
and Engineers (Private) Limited.”
In November 2014 first applicant, in his capacity
as Chairman of second applicant, addressed correspondence to first respondent
in which he suspended him. He also barred him from attending at his work-place.
Thereafter a battle for the control of second applicant and/or Quad Founders
& Engineers began. The first respondent obtained a spoliation order in the
Magistrates Court in MC 30523/14. The applicants claim that the order cannot be
allowed to stand as it is vitiated by certain serious procedural
irregularities. The applicants filed an application for its review with this
court. In the meantime the first applicant sought an urgent stay of the order
subject of review through the chamber book in HC 46/15. The judge before who
the matter was placed found that the matter was not urgent and declined to hear
it as such. She also pointed out that there was need to join second applicant.
There is divergence of views between the parties regarding the outcome of that
application. The first applicant contends that he withdrew the matter in order
to join the second applicant as advised by the judge respondent, on the other
hand, says the matter was dismissed. As such the applicants cannot have a
second bite of the cherry.
Whatever the position is,
it is clear to me that where this court has ruled that a matter is not urgent,
as conceded by the applicants, a party cannot file the same matter under a
certificate of urgency unless it can establish new grounds upon which it can be
said the matter is urgent. A matter is urgent when, it is said, it cannot wait.
See Kuvarega v Registrar-General & Another 1998 (1) ZLR 188. In the present
case, the basis of urgency is said to be the belligerent attitude adopted by
the first respondent in the fight for the control of the company. Clearly,
there are several other remedies available to the applicants, in terms of the
law, to address the aggression as well as the perceived disruption of normal
business activities of the company.
Since I was similarly not
satisfied that the matter was urgent, I declined to deal it on that basis and
directed that it be brought through the normal rules of court.
The matter is removed
from the roll of urgent matters with no order as to costs.
Takawira
Law Chambers, applicants'
legal practitioners
Govere Law Chambers, first respondent's
legal practitioners
