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Prosper Dembedza

Herald Correspondent

Tendai Biti’s bid to have Harare regional magistrate Mrs Vongai Muchuchuti recuse herself  from handling his assault case has failed after it was dismissed due to lack of merit.
Biti is facing charges of manhandling a Zimbabwean investor Mrs Tatiana Aleshina at the Harare Magistrates Court.

In dismissing Biti’s application Mrs Muchuchuti said if the court had not dismissed Biti’s  application for postponement on August 1, the applicant  would not have made an application for her recusal, suggesting that he was aggrieved by that ruling. Mrs Muchuchuti said the dismissal of Biti’s application for postponement is a question of law. 

“The applicant had no substantive grounds to prove that the court was taking away his constitutional rights,” she said.

She further ruled that Biti was busy seeing writings on the wall, which are not there as she asserted that the question of bias does not hold water in this assault case.
In her ruling, the magistrate also said the reasons proffered by the applicant are not reasonable for my recusal.