Buyanga custody row drags on

By Prosper Dembedza

The battle between Chantelle Muteswa and Frank Buyanga over their four-year-old son saw Muteswa failing to obtain an urgent injunction stopping Buyanga from changing the minor’s surname until after a judicial review.

The Children’s Court last week ruled that Buyanga could have his name appear on the child’s birth certificate.

Muteswa, through her lawyers, Wilmot and Bennett, filed the urgent chamber application after Buyanga won the right to change the surname of their son.

Muteswa told the High Court in her urgent application that registration in his mother’s surname was in the boy’s best interests.

She further argued that the High Court was the upper guardian of the minor child and is enjoined by the Constitution to provide him with adequate protection, including confirming and enforcing an existing court order relating to his custody and safeguarding him from reasonable fears that he may be removed from its protection.

The Children’s Court confirmed on May 27, 2019 that Muteswa had sole custody.

But her lawyers said she had been disposed of physical custody of the child since 1 July, 2019, a prolonged period of over 150 days.

Buyanga had tried unsuccessfully on the strength of a defective notice of appeal to the Supreme Court to secure the removal of the boy from Zimbabwe despite an order barring him from doing so granted by the High Court.

The two used to stay together in Sandton, South Africa, before they ended their relationship. The Herald