THE lawyers representing Prince Simakade in his bid to dethrone his younger brother, Zulu King Misuzulu, have accused President Cyril Ramaphosa of failing to provide their client with his record of decision.
Before tomorrow’s (MONDAY’S) case management meeting, Hamman Moosa Incorporated, Simakade’s legal representatives, said Ramaphosa had failed to file the record of his decision to recognise Misuzulu.
Prince Simakade is suing Ramaphosa; Misuzulu; Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, in his capacity as the traditional prime minister of the Zulus; Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma; KwaZulu-Natal premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube; the national and provincial houses of traditional leaders; and the Zulu royal family.
In his application to the North Gauteng High Court, Simakade, who is the eldest son of late Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini, says he wants the decision taken at the May 2021 meeting, convened by Buthelezi and purporting to be the royal family, to be reviewed and set aside.
He is also wants Ramaphosa’s March 2022 decision to recognise Misuzulu, and the August 2022 coronation, or recognition ceremony, held to recognise his brother as the Isilo, to be reviewed and set aside.
“The persons attending the (May 2021) meeting did not constitute the royal family of the Zulu kingship in terms of the definition of the royal family of the Traditional and Khoisan Leadership Act,” Simakade argues in his court papers.
He told the high court that under customary law, Buthelezi was not entitled to convene a meeting of the royal family, neither as a prince, who is the cousin of Zwelithini’s late father Solomon kaDinuzulu, nor as the traditional prime minister.
Simakade said Misuzulu, whom he described as his half-brother, was presented at the meeting as Zwelithini’s heir, as a fait accompli, when the matter ought to have been properly deliberated by a properly convened and constituted royal family.
“I was wrongly excluded from consideration, on the basis of the meeting having been misinformed that I had renounced my claim to the throne,” he said.
Simakade maintains that he is Zwelithini’s rightful heir because he is the late king’s eldest male child and has undergone the custom of ukufakwa esiswini (regularising a child born out of wedlock) and that the decision purportedly taken in the May 2021 meeting to recognise Misuzulu was based on an error of fact and customary law.
He told the court that he was isokangqangi, the first son of the head of a family or a king begotten before marriage, where the mother of the child was never married to the father of the said child, or the king.
“Through the operation of ukufakwa esiswini, the birth of this child is regularised within the royal family. The conduct of affiliating isokangqangi with the house of great wife through ukufakwa esiswini custom turns isokangqangi into the heir.” Simakade said.
He said he was affiliated to the house of the late Queen Mantfombi Dlamini, Zwelithini’s great-wife and Misuzulu’s mother, and that regularised his birth and accorded him the same rights and obligations as her eldest biological son.
Simakade said the application of the custom of ukufakwa esiswini was part of the history of the Ngunis.
He accused Ramaphosa of failing, without reason, to follow the recommendation of the mediation panel set up to settle the dispute that the president should not decide to recognise Misuzulu, pending a full investigation into the heir to the Zulu throne.
Simakade’s uncle and Zwelithini’s half-brother Prince Mbonisi and 27 others are also challenging Misuzulu’s recognition and the current king, Buthelezi and the royal family are opposing the matter.
Johann Hamman of Hamman Moosa Incorporated told the Sunday Independent that Misuzulu and Buthelezi, who are represented by law firm Strauss Daly Attorneys, wanted Simakade and Mbonisi’s applications to be consolidated and heard by one judge, which they opposed.