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Renew Ncube's passport: Court
The
Herald (Zimbabwe)
January
26, 2007
The High Court
has ordered the Registrar General, Mr Tobaiwa Mudede, to renew newspaper
publisher Mr Trevor Ncube’s passport within seven days, saying he
was a bona-fide Zimbabwean citizen.
High Court judge
Justice Chinembiri Bhunu said the withdrawal and cancellation of
the publisher’s citizenship by Mr Mudede was unlawful, null and
void and of no force and effect.
The order follows
an application by Mr Ncube contesting the decision by the RG to
decline to issue him with a new passport saying he had not renounced
his Zambian citizenship by descent within the prescribed period.
The judge made
the order after the Attorney General’s Office, representing Mr Mudede
and Minister of Home Affairs cited as respondents by Mr Ncube, had
abandoned their opposition of the application.
Mr Virginia
Mabhiza of the AG’s Office had told the court that they were abandoning
their opposition of the case after Ncube produced a legal opinion
by a Zambian Advocate regarding Zambian citizenship laws.
She said they
were abandoning the opposition but argued that each part should
bear its own costs, an assertion that was heavily contested by Mr
Stenford Moyo of Scanlen Holderness, representing Mr Ncube.
The Zambian
Advocate, Mr Nchima Ncito said that a citizen of Zambia who is 21
and acquires citizenship of another country ceases to be a Zambian.
Justice Bhunu
castigated Mr Mudede’s failure to renew the passport notwithstanding
the publication of rules governing renunciation of the foreign citizenship
in a Government Gazette and a final order issued last year by the
same court.
The rules stipulated
that a person who was a citizen of Zimbabwe by birth could not be
deprived or denied his citizenship unless he acquired a foreign
citizenship.
The judge said
Mr Ncube had indeed complied with the laid down rules.
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