By Costa Nkomo
High Court of Zimbabwe judge Justice Munamato Mutevedzi has dismissed the bail application appeal by the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party administrator Jameson Timba and 76 others.
Former Harare Senator, Timba, and other CCC 76 activists were arrested on 16 June 2024 in Avondale at the former’s private residence while commemorating the Day of the African Child.
The activists who were brutally assaulted by the police were denied bail by Harare Magistrate Ruth Moyo on 27 June 2024. They have been in remand prison for the past 31 days.
The activists subsequently appealed Magistrate Moyo’s bail denial ruling at the High Court which was heard Tuesday this week.
True to his word, Justice Mutevedzi who had informed the appellants that his ruling will come not later than Thursday 18 July, was then delivered this morning virtually with the bail appeal being dismissed.
In his ruling, Justice Mutevedzi said Magistrate Moyo was within the law to deny the CCC activists bail.
“My conclusion is that there was no misdirection in the court a quo’s overall assessment of the issues and its findings that the appellants were not proper candidates for admission to bail,” Justice Mutevedzi said.
“What is material is that I didn’t find any misdirection in the decision of the magistrate’s court. The discretion of the trial magistrate, which was demonstrated, she exercised judiciously must stand…
“The appeal against the refusal to admit appellants to bail by the Magistrate’s Court sitting at Harare on 27 June 2024 be and his hereby dismissed in its entirety.”
Justice Mutevedzi upheld Magistrate Moyo’s grounds for refusing bail: The appellants are likely to commit further crimes, interfere with witnesses, the seriousness of the crime and the severity of the penalty, and may disturb public peace and security.
However, CCC Legal Affairs Shadow Minister and one of the appellants’ lawyers, Agency Gumbo described Justice Mutevedzi’s bail appeal ruling as a travesty of justice.
“It’s a travesty of justice. The High Court has dismissed the bail appeal for Jameson Timba and others. We will update the nation and stakeholders soon,” Gumbo wrote on his X account Wednesday.
Bulawayo Mayor and seasoned human rights lawyer David Coltart summed up Justice Mutevedzi’s ruling: “This is utterly outrageous. Those in charge of Zimbabwe have lost all sense of justice. There is in fact no justice left in Zimbabwe. We have the form of justice with no substance,” Coltart wrote on X his X account Wednesday.
