Constable Mataruse and Constable Chitiga v Board President (Chief Superintendent Mudzamiri) and The Commissioner General of Police

The applicants, both police constables, were convicted by a trial officer in terms of the Police Act on 21 October 2014. Following their conviction, they were notified to attend board of suitability proceedings to determine whether they should remain in the police force. The applicants took no action to challenge their conviction immediately. More than six weeks later, on 11 December 2014, they filed both an application for review of their conviction and an urgent chamber application seeking to interdict the respondents from proceeding with the board of suitability proceedings pending determination of their review application.

• Whether the matter qualified as urgent for purposes of urgent chamber application proceedings
• Whether the applicants treated the matter with the urgency required by the rules of court
• Whether self-created urgency or urgency arising from waiting until the day of reckoning qualifies as urgency envisaged by court rules

The matter was struck off the roll with costs.

A matter qualifies as urgent only if it cannot wait to be dealt with as an ordinary court application. Urgency which is self-created or where an applicant waits for the day of reckoning is not the urgency envisaged by the rules of court. A party who seeks to have their matter heard on an urgent basis must demonstrate through their conduct that they treated the matter with urgency. Delay in bringing an urgent application, particularly when the applicant was aware of the circumstances giving rise to the need for urgent relief, disqualifies the matter from being heard on an urgent basis.

The court observed that the submission that the applicants were self-actors (acting without legal representation initially) was not a sound basis for excusing the delay, as the applicants were aware that suitability inquiry proceedings would follow upon their conviction. This suggests that lack of legal representation alone does not excuse failure to act with urgency where the applicant is aware of the consequences of their conviction or the procedural steps that would follow.

This case reinforces the important principle in Zimbabwean (and similarly South African) law regarding urgent applications that urgency is not merely determined by the nature of the relief sought, but by the conduct of the applicant in pursuing that relief. It emphasizes that applicants must act promptly and cannot create their own urgency by delaying action until the consequences of their inaction are imminent. The case serves as a reminder that courts will scrutinize whether applicants have treated their matters with appropriate urgency and will not entertain urgent applications where applicants have sat on their rights.