Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front Secretary for Legal Affairs Patrick Chinamasa says former Secretary for Administration Didymus Mutasa is wasting his time by taking party matters to court because the party system subjects all members to disciplinary action from their peers, and any aggrieved members have a right to appeal if they are not satisfied with disciplinary committee’s decisions. He was commenting on reports that Mutasa is going to court to challenge the validity of the congress that ousted his and his colleagues including former Vice-President Joice Mujuru. “A political party is formed to advance, promote, and propagate specific causes, interests, values, policies and programmes. Those whose hearts have been won by the party have a responsibility to defend the programmes and policies all the time and it requires members to be disciplined,” Chinamasa was quoted by The Sunday Mail as saying. “It follows that internal discipline rests with party members. Any person who is in breach or violation of the policies and values of ZANU-PF must be disciplined by his/her peers. It’s nonsensical for outsiders to be brought before internal discipline of the party. No court of law has jurisdiction to decide party programmes and who should be in positions. Leaders are elected by party membership and not by the courts. Therefore, any attempt to resort to the courts is an exercise in futility because we cannot have outsiders coming to decide who should be in what position. Judges cannot be arbiters in issues concerning members. This puts to rest any suggestion that ZANU-PF will look at outsiders for adjudication in matters related to disciplinary action against its members. Any suggestion to that notion is nonsense.”
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