High Court judge Justice Bhunu on 25 January 2006 ordered the Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede to renew the passport of prominent Zimbabwean publisher Trevor Ncube within seven days of service of his order to that effect.

Justice Bhunu made the ruling after the Attorney-General's Office withdrew its opposing papers in which Ncube was seeking a High Court order to renew his passport following his application for Zimbabwean citizenship.

Ncube who is the publisher of the privately owned Zimbabwe Independent and Zimbabwe Standard as well as the Mail and Guardian of South Africa, had cited the Registrar General (RG) and the Minister of Home Affairs Kembo Mohadi as respondents in the matter.

In his response to the application filed by Ncube, the RG was arguing that Ncube is a Zambian by descent and was required to renounce that country’s citizenship in terms of Zambian law to qualify for a Zimbabwean passport. Mudede said Ncube should have renounced his Zambian citizenship by descent within the prescribed period between July 6 and January 6 2002 failure of which meant automatic loss of his Zimbabwean citizenship.

The respondents were also ordered to meet Ncube's legal costs after he ruled that Ncube is a citizen of Zimbabwe by birth and that the refusal to renew his passport was unlawful, null and void and of no force or effect.

Ncube argued that the withdrawal of his citizenship was unlawful as he has never been a citizen of any other country other than Zimbabwe but contends that his father who was born in Zambia is a Zimbabwean citizen.

The judge said his order in December 2005 in which he ordered the same respondents not to interfere with the possession of Ncube’s passport after immigration officials in Bulawayo seized the same document on December 8 2005 upon his arrival from South Africa, still stood and had not been invalidated as was being argued by the Registrar-General.

No reasons were advanced then for the unlawful action other than that Ncube was on a list of citizens whose passports were to be withdrawn. His passport was released after the Attorney-General's Office conceded that the 2005 seizure was unlawful.

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