Serial litigant who has filed 26 lawsuits contests High Court ban

By Daniel Nemukuyu

Serial litigant Ignatius Masamba has approached the Constitutional Court challenging a judgment barring him from suing anyone at the High Court without first seeking permission.

Justice Joseph Mafusire last month dismissed Masamba as a “vexatious litigant” and barred him from suing anyone else without seeking leave of the court.

At the time when the perpetual silence judgment was handed down, Masamba had instituted over 26 cases in the High Court and most of them were viewed to be groundless.

The judgment came after City of Harare approached the court seeking a decree of perpetual silence against Masamba over several lawsuits.

Justice Mafusire issued a decree of perpetual silence against Masamba in respect of his agency, management, occupation or interest of whatever kind in the property known as Number 4 Residell Court, 56 Selous Avenue, Harare.

Masamba, a self-actor who prepares his court documents using an outstandingly big font that is different from what is expected, has bounced back with a chamber application for condonation of late filing of appeal.

In the chamber application filed at the Constitutional Court this week, Masamba said he failed to file his appeal due to ignorance of the recently gazetted rules of the Constitutional Court.

The time-frames in the new rules, according Mr Masamba, were different from those in the practice directives that were previously relied on.

“The chief reason I failed to file papers in time was lack of awareness of the time limit rule because the last time I filed documents at the Constitutional Court under CCZ45/13, things were different,” he said.

“I was never made aware of the availability of the CCZ Rules Statutory Instrument of 2016. . .”

Mr Masamba described the High Court judgment as “provocative, biased and political”.

“The decree of perpetual silence handed down by Hon Justice Mafusire in June 2016 at the High Court is extraordinarily wrong because even before independence during the white man’s rule, there was no such abuse of people’s fundamental rights,” he said.

Apart from the City of Harare case, Masamba has also sued several other people, bodies, including estate agents.

The suits against estate agents have all been about alleged mismanagement of the flat, while a residents’ association in the apartment block has also been hit by several suits for one fault or another.

Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company had its own share of suits for allegedly inflating power bills to Masamba’s flat.

He has also sued the Judicial Service Commission, accusing it of employing incompetent magistrates.

This was after a magistrate had dismissed his claims against the City of Harare in respect of the flat.

Masamba’s suits have almost always been thrown out for lack of substance or coherence.

He would also blast the JSC for allegedly employing incompetent judges that pander to whims of political parties. The Herald