Magistrate’s bid to stop trial failed

Source: Magistrate’s bid to stop trial failed | The Herald

Chief Court Reporter
SUSPENDED Karoi magistrate Amanda Muridzo and her two accomplices’ bid to block their trial for allegedly taking a US$20 bribe has failed after the High Court ruled the trio’s trial should proceed.

Muridzo is facing bribery charges along with David Mazowi and Shelter Kachirika, a clerk at the same court.

The trio approached the High Court on review after the trial magistrate threw out their application for discharge at the close of the State’s case.

They argued that the trial magistrate, Ms Bianca Makwande’s decision to place them on their defence was “so outrageous in its defiance of logic that no sensible court having applied its mind to the facts of the case would arrive at it.”

But on review, Justice Tawanda Chitapi upheld the trial court’s decision finding that the trial magistrate properly accepted that the circumstantial facts established a prima facie case of bribery and dismissed the trio’s application for review of the magistrate’s decision.