Another Legal Victory For Boko

Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Monday July 7, 2014 06:59

 

The Court of Appeal dismissed with costs the case in which a disgruntled member, Reverend Thomas Kathata Mhale, represented by Boko’s nemesis, Gabriel Kanjabanga, wanted the BNF president to resign his post since he had assumed the leadership of the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC). 

Court of Appeal president Ian Kirby, Judges Isaac Lesetedi and Stephen Gaongalelwe, heard the case.  When delivering judgement Kirby said there is no evidence that Boko has joined the UDC or that he has been issued with its membership card.  “He denies having done so, and in the absence of evidence to the contrary, his denial must be accepted. In the case of the BNF too, there is nothing on record to show that it joined the UDC in the sense of having made any application to do so.

“Rather it is a foundation member of the UDC, which is its own creation, along with its partners,” Kirby said. 

He said the respondents in the case are deemed by statute to be members of the UDC, since both the BNF and the UDC are registered or exempted associations under the Societies Act.  Further stressing that the BNF is included by virtue of its founder membership status and Boko is its president by virtue of his presidency of the BNF.  “The word ‘Joined’ too is to be construed in the context of the constitution as a whole. This word should also be broadly construed to mean that a member who voluntarily becomes a member of a competing political party loses his membership of the BNF,” he said.  He said in the case of the UDC, it is not a competing party and rather it is a creation of the BNF, which Boko was mandated by national congress to form and to participate in.

He said to suggest that Boko should lose his membership by complying with that mandate would be absurd.  

Therefore, said Kirby, the appeal could not succeed.  Representing Boko and the BNF was Malcolm Gobhodza.