ZBC loses eviction cases

The High Court has dealt a major blow to the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC)'s attempts to evict its former employees from Hatley House flats in Harare, striking off its application for violating procedural rules by unlawfully consolidating separate lawsuits.

Justice Christopher Dube-Banda ruled that the state broadcaster's move to merge three distinct eviction suits - filed between 2018 and 2020 - into one summary judgment application was "fatally defective" and lacked proper court approval.

The dispute centres around residential units at Hatley House, located at 27 Josiah Tongogara Avenue, where various groups of former ZBC workers have been living. When some occupants challenged the broadcaster's efforts to remove them, ZBC responded by combining the three eviction cases into a single application - a step the court found impermissible.

In a scathing judgment, Justice Dube-Banda rejected ZBC's argument that its action constituted a "composite application."

"A composite application refers to a single application that combines multiple distinct, but related, requests for relief. This is not what ZBC did," the judge clarified. He said the broadcaster's attempt to use Rule 7 - intended to address minor procedural variances - to justify the merger was misguided.

"The failure by litigants to comply with the rules of court is a common occurrence," the judge noted. "They [the rules] are not to be slavishly followed for the sake of it, but they ought not to be flouted without sanction."

Respondents successfully argued that ZBC's actions infringed their right to contest consolidation under Rule 34, which allows parties in separate matters the right to oppose a merger. "Such a right cannot be trammelled for no good measure," the ruling added.

Justice Dube-Banda ordered ZBC to pay legal costs, in line with the established principle that "costs follow the event."

Court records show that the respondents were represented by Jessie Majome & Co (first to fourth respondents) and Tendai Biti Law (fifth to ninth respondents), while ZBC was represented by Mushuma Law Chambers.

Legal experts say the ruling forces the national broadcaster to either reinitiate individual eviction suits or make a formal application to consolidate the cases through proper channels - both of which could prolong the matter by several years.

The judgment serves as a reminder of the importance of procedural compliance, even for state institutions, in safeguarding the integrity of the legal system.