High Court Judge Justice Rodgers Manyangadze has deferred to tomorrow, judgement in Tendai Biti’s application for his assault case to be referred to the Constitutional Court.
The CCC vice president is facing a charge of assaulting
Russian businesswoman and investor Mrs Tatiana Aleshina at the Harare
Magistrates Court sometime in 2020.
Biti unsuccessfully filed the application at the
Magistrates Court for referral to the ConCourt and aggrieved by the dismissal
of his application, he approached the High Court saying he had high chances the
application could be granted.
High Court Judge Justice Rodgers Manyangadze on Wednesday
heard the heads of argument of the State and the defence on the application for
review and he set March 20 as his judgement day.
Earlier, Justice Manyangadze had dismissed Biti’s court
application to stop the lower court proceedings to allow the determination of
this review application.
The judge’s argument was that he would deliver the ruling
on the application for referral before the next remand date of trial at the
lower court.
However, in the present application, Biti challenged
Magistrate Mrs Vongai Muchuchuti-Guwuriro’s determination that dismissed his
application for referral to the ConCourt saying his application had merit to be
referred to the apex court.
Biti had said his trial would not be fair and had earlier
had his application for recusal of the magistrate dismissed. He said the
magistrate was biased in his case.
But the State, represented by Mr Michael Reza, opposed that
application saying it was vexatious and frivolous.
The State also said the application was only aimed at
delaying the proceedings that had taken two years without any progress.
Mr Reza said Biti had filed for the recusal of magistrates
on more than three occasions and an application for referral to ConCourt on two
occasions.
Mrs Muchuchuti-Guwuriro ruled that the trial should
proceed. Chronicle
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