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Herald Reporter
The Attorney-General’s Office has on several occasions been slammed for alleged bungling and incompetence, which resulted in Government losing cases unnecessarily.

A few weeks ago, State counsel Mr Happy Magadure wilfully disregarded the court’s directive to put his house in order, culminating in Justice Priscilla Chigumba declaring Statutory Instrument 101A of 2016 that banned demonstrations in Harare’s CBD invalid and ultra vires the Public Order and Security Act and hence the Constitution.

This was after the judge had advised the State counsel that his papers were defective as they only had the Police Commissioner-General’s affidavit and not the Affidavit of the first respondent Officer Commanding Harare District, Chief Superintendent Newbert Saunyama who issued SI 101A.

Despite this, Mr Magadure still failed to file the required affidavit.

In October last year, Justice Joseph Mafusire accused the office of unprofessional conduct after its two lawyers appeared before him ill-prepared in a case they had filed.

The two lawyers were only identified as N.M. Muzuva and E. Mukucha.

The duo filed an application on behalf of the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission seeking to stop a former employee Sydney Ushe from attaching the body’s property over outstanding benefits.

Dismissing the application, Justice Mafusire said the pair had been ‘’lackadaisical’’ and ‘’sluggard’’ in handling the case.

“The two officers from the Civil Division of the Attorney General’s office who appeared for the applicant seemed ill-prepared. The applicant was lackadaisical. It was sluggard,” Justice Mafusire said in his ruling.

“I had to struggle to understand the background facts from their papers or submissions. In the end, I had to turn to the respondent.”

“Urgency which stems from a deliberate or careless abstention from action until deadline draws nearer is not the type contemplated by the rules”

In October 2013, Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku blasted the AG’s Office after law officer Ms Chenai Garisenheta exhibited ignorance of the basis procedure in the Constitutional Court while defending Government in a matter ii was being sued by a fired Army Captain.

Ms Garisenheta invited the wrath of the court when she sought postponement of the case after the soldier had finished arguing his case.

She gave an excuse that the papers were prepared by the ZDF officers and that she received them late but the Chief Justice was quick to quash the point.

The Chief Justice said: “That is not an excuse, it is your case. If you did not prepare the papers correctly you should not have come here.

“You were supposed to seek a postponement to put your house in order before the other party argued his case….

“Your superiors should not send you to the Constitutional Court when you do not know the basics because you will end up losing cases,” he said.

Last year the AG’s Office blundered again in a case in which the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) was seeking to have criminal defamation struck down.

The then Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Corporation Professor Jonathan Moyo was advocating the removal of the law from the statutes but he was surprised to learn through media reports that the AG had filed an affidavit on his behalf defending criminal defamation.

The AG ended up withdrawing the affidavit.