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Yeukai Karengezeka Court Correspondent
Former Cabinet Minister Prisca Mupfumira had her application to stay her trial without exhausting remedies available at the lower courts thrown out yesterday in a judgment in which the High Court chastised lawyers for filing prematurely prepared stuff.

Mupfumira is facing corruption charges together with former Secretary for Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Ngoni Masoka.

The pair was seeking a review of the trial court proceedings after their request for exception to the charges was rejected.

Acting chief magistrate Mr Munamato Mutevedzi threw out the application and ordered the high-profile trial to start.

Dismissing the application for review by the duo, Justice Pisirayi Kwenda sitting with Justice Benjamin Chikowero ruled that it lacked merit to warrant the upper court’s interference with the trial process at the lower court.

“As for the application for review which we grappled with, its purpose was to seek acquittal but they did not follow due process that is the trial itself,” said Justice Kwenda.

“We are not the trial court. We should not be hearing dry and premature submissions on the defences or innocence of the applicants.”

He said an application for review of a magistrate court’s proceedings or decision on an exception to a charge could not be equated to closing submissions by an accused at the close of the defence case.

The court also noted that the pair had not even pleaded to the charges in the trial court.

Justice Kwenda criticised the duo’s lawyers for bringing premature applications to the High Court in a bid to impede the course of justice.

Justice Chikowero concurred with the ruling.

Mupfumira and Masoka are facing criminal abuse of office and money laundering charges after they allegedly connived with a local bank to defraud the National Social Security Authority (NSSA) of millions of dollars.

The charges also emanate from an incident in which she used money from the ministry to sponsor guests who attended her child’s wedding in Cape Town, South Africa.

Sometime in July 2015, Mupfumira and Masoka unlawfully caused the purchase of a Toyota Land Cruiser VX-L 200 Series from Croco Motors using US$90 000 corruptly obtained from NSSA on June 2, 2017.