Pretoria - The North Gauteng high court in Pretoria has dismissed the urgent and last-minute court application by Prince Mbonisi who wanted to have the August 13 coronation of King MisuZulu halted.
Judge Noluntu Bam struck the matter off the roll and the senior Zulu Prince, who is a half-brother to the late King Goodwill Zwelithini, was ordered to pay legal costs.
The judge said the matter lacked the urgency cited by Prince Mbonisi and the 12 other members of the royal family like Prince Mxolisi and Prince Vulindlela.
“Kindly take note of the order made by the court. 1) The matter is struck off the roll for want of urgency with costs and such costs include the costs of two counsel where so employed,” Judge Bam ruled on Tuesday after listening to submissions for about four hours.
The dismissing of the case now paves the way for the two legged coronation (in Nongoma and Durban) to go ahead without any legal hurdle, even though Prince Mbonisi and others still have two other cases in the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) and the High Court in Pretoria.
In the SCA case, the senior Zulu prince and others are challenging Judge Isaac Madondo’s ruling in the Pietermaritzburg High Court in March which paved the way for the recognition and the coronation.
Other than King Misuzulu, the applicants in Tuesday’s case dragged in Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the king’s traditional prime minister, KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sihle Zikalala, President Cyril Ramaphosa and Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs minister, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, among others.
When the case started, Advocate Thabani Masuku SC opened the floor by telling the judge that should the coronation be allowed to go ahead, the horse would have bolted as the applicants will have no redress after that.
He argued that the coronation should be halted because it will endorse a process that is being challenged in court, since the nomination process that led to King Misuzulu taking the throne was flawed in many ways.
He said the coronation is the last step in this historic process and if allowed, it will pose challenges for all parties. However, he admitted in court that Prince Mbonisi and the others are not claiming that King Misizulu does not qualify, but they are merely challenging the process followed.
Later, Masuku told the court that Prince Mbonisi and others do not dispute that Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi is a member of the Zulu royal family. However, what they dispute are the powers he claims to have.
Powers like being the only one empowered to call royal meetings which they claim he later abused to ram through the nomination and recognition of Misuzulu as the heir to the throne.
In response, Advocate Griffiths Madonsela SC, who represented King Misuzulu and Prince Buthelezi, argued that Prince Mbonisi's case is weak, it does not meet the requirements for it to be treated as an urgent one.
He added the case is not compliant with the court’s rules on urgency and asked the matter to be thrown out. Madonsela cited many cases where Prince Mbonisi went to court with similar arguments and they were dismissed.
Furthermore, he thrashed arguments by Prince Mbonisi's legal team that if the coronation is allowed to go ahead, the horse would have bolted. He cited the Mphephu Ramabula case where the former Venda King was dethroned by courts after his coronation, saying it proves otherwise.
After a brief break, Madonsela also thrashed Prince Mbonisi for making allegations of incest against the King even though he admitted that the allegations are not proven. He says the issue has now become a moving target because he is now claiming it was another half-sister, yet in his initial court papers, he claimed it was with one of the king’s biological sisters from KwaKhangelamankengane palace.
Prince Mbonisi’s court application got more hammering when Advocate Marumo Moerane SC, who was representing Ramaphosa and Dlamini-Zuma, argued that the applicants have not made out a clear case for the interdict and labelled it “incompetent”.
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