HARARE - The State has insisted that it will not prosecute Bikita West MP Munyaradzi Kereke over rape allegations and urged the complainants to pursue a private prosecution.
But the complainant described it as a miscarriage of justice.
Kereke, a former advisor to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor, is accused of raping an 11-year-old relative four years ago, but is yet to stand trial.
The girl’s guardian Francis Maramwidze filed a High Court application seeking an order for the businessman-cum-politician’s prosecution after claims that the police were failing to take action.
However, Sharon Fero from the prosecutor-general’s office, yesterday said the police and the prosecution department had acted according to their mandates by declining to prosecute Kereke.
“First and second respondents (commissioner general of police and prosecutor-general) acted accordingly and in line with their constitutional mandates,” Fero said, adding that the two institutions were independent bodies.
She said the prosecutor-general was of the view that there was no basis to prosecute Kereke, adding that the complainant can formally make an application for private prosecution.
“The relief being sought by applicant is incompetent at law,” Fero said, further claiming that it will be equally incompetent for the court to give a directive for Kereke’s prosecution on rape charges.
Maramwidze’s lawyer Charles Warara said that the police and the prosecutor-general should bring Kereke to book, saying the private prosecution still needed the go-ahead from the prosecutor-general who was declining to prosecute the lawmaker.
“The failure by the first and second respondent to bring third respondent (Kereke) to court or arrest him was a denial of the applicant’s rights to access to justice,” Warara said.
He further said it was not clear on what basis the decision to decline prosecution was based upon. He further told the court that the police and the prosecutor-general had acted “improperly”.
“There was failure to observe the law by the second respondent, which requires him to be neutral,” Warara said.
He queried how the prosecutor-general’s office exercised its discretion to decline Kereke’s prosecution.
Lewis Uriri, who appeared on behalf of Kereke, said there was no basis for the order that was being sought by Maramwidze.
“Once the prosecutor-general has made its decision not to prosecute, his decision is not ordinarily subject to review,” Uriri said.
He said any prosecution should be at the instance of the prosecutor-general, which is an independent institution that regulates its own operations.
Uriri further said the proceedings were a nullity, considering that no formal application fora joinder had been made to include his client as a respondent.
He said the court had simply expressed sentiments for Kereke’s citation, but had not given an order to that effect.
High Court judge Happias Zhou reserved ruling in the matter.