Probe into Tsvangirai's elections lawyers

The Attorney-General's Office has referred to the police for investigations a case in which lawyers who represented MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai in an election petition are facing contempt of court charges.

The lawyers made a scathing attack on the Judiciary, which the Electoral Court deemed contemptuous, in the case in which the MDC-T leader was requesting election material from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to buttress the election petition he had filed with the Constitutional Court.

In its ruling last month, the Electoral Court judge, Justice Chinembiri Bhunu, said the prosecuting authority should take an appropriate action against the lawyers for bringing the integrity of the judiciary into disrepute.

"The case has been referred appropriately to an institution with the mandate to investigate and we will be guided by their investigations," Attorney-General Mr Johannes Tomana said yesterday.

Mr Tsvangirai has since filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the Electoral Court's decision, which denied him access to election material and recommended arrest of his lawyers on contempt of court charges.

Mr Tomana said the appeal did not stop police investigations into the matter.

"The appeal is neither here nor there. All we are doing is checking to see whether an offence was committed. It is not whether the judgment was right or wrong," he said.

In recommending action against Mr Tsvangirai's lawyers, the Electoral Court also blasted the outgoing Prime Minister whose conduct it described as confused, unstable and not fit for the highest office on the land.

"It is ironic that having made those scathing disparaging remarks of and concerning the entire Judiciary of this country, the applicant and his lawyers are now seeking justice before the same Judiciary in which they have no confidence," Justice Bhunu said.

"His (Mr Tsvangirai's) conduct in this regard is symptomatic of an unbalanced convoluted mindset unbefitting a man of his stature and station," he said.

The judge placed more blame on the lawyers.

"While the applicant's (Mr Tsvangirai's) reprehensible conduct in this respect may be attributable to ignorance of the law, the same cannot be said of his lawyers.

"As officers of the court, they filed and sought to rely on the appalling document from which they now seek to resile with the full knowledge that their conduct was patently unethical," he said.

Justice Bhunu said the lawyers should share the collective responsibility of the contemptuous conduct with their client and that they have no basis to dissociate themselves from their client's averments. Throwing out the two applications by Mr Tsvangirai in which he sought the release of some election material used in the July 31 election, Justice Bhunu said the lawyers insisted on bringing up the case well knowing that a "dossier" containing information scandalising the court had also been filed at court.

"In the final analysis, I come to the conclusion that there is no merit in both applications. Because of the applicant's gross conduct in soiling the dignity and integrity of this court, the court can only express its displeasure by an award of costs at a higher scale.