HARARE – Prominent Zimbabwean lawyer and author Petina Gappah has issued a full retraction and apology to former Mt Pleasant legislator Fadzayi Mahere in a long-running US$1 million defamation lawsuit.
The dispute stemmed from a public spat between the two female lawyers on Twitter in September 2018.
Gappah admitted posting “a number of statements” about Mahere, including that she gained entry to the University of Zimbabwe through her father’s influence and “attempted to get into [the] pants” of Gappah’s son’s father.
Gappah further claimed she helped Mahere secure a place at Cambridge University.
Mahere, who is also a lawyer, vehemently denied the allegations and sued Gappah for US$1 million, claiming the tweets caused “irreparable harm to her political career, her career as a civil society activist and to her career as an advocate.”
Gappah issued a letter of apology on Monday.
She stated: “In order to bring a conclusive end to the legal action, I hereby fully and unequivocally retract all the statements that I made about her, both on Twitter and in subsequent legal pleadings, and tender a full, public and unreserved apology to Advocate Mahere for any pain, hurt or distress that were caused by my statements.”
Gappah pledged to donate to a charity of Mahere’s choosing “as a demonstration of my good faith, sincerity and regret.”
In March this year High Court Judge Joseph Mafusire dismissed a recusal application filed by Gappah.
The prominent lawyer had accused Justice Mafusire of bias towards Mahere, citing his dismissal of previous applications and alleging an undisclosed personal relationship with the plaintiff.
Justice Mafusire called the accusations “an unmitigated absurdity” and “an affront to the court.” He pointed out that Mahere, like all lawyers, has appeared before him in multiple cases, winning and losing some.
The judge further criticised Gappah’s legal team for their role in the recusal application.
“The applicant has unjustifiably gone personal. She has purported to superimpose her own misguided issues into the respondent’s cause. This is wrong. What is more, it is done in the most derogatory manner.
“Facts are deliberately twisted. An example is the refrain that I called her ‘wicked’. Yet that expression, in the leave to appeal judgment, was in reference to the self-serving philosophy that says justice is only justice when decisions are given in one’s favour.
“Unbelievably, both the applicant and her lawyers fail to grasp the simple point that by operation of the law, the nature of her defence to the respondent’s claim for defamation, quite apart from what may, or may not have been agreed upon at the pre trial conference, is such that the onus of proof automatically shifts to her. This is quite elementary. But all these issues are now res judicata and should not continue to be recycled,” the judge said.
