The applicant was married to the first respondent. The applicant had been running and managing the third respondent's business affairs at Shop 14 Bulawayo Centre and Cowdray Park Supermarket in Bulawayo. The applicant recently issued divorce summons against the first respondent (case No. HC 1600/22), and moved out of the matrimonial home. The applicant alleged that the first respondent had barred her from managing the business entities she had been managing, collected rentals she was entitled to collect, and sent a WhatsApp message on 2 March 2022 indicating he would collect rentals from tenants. The applicant approached the court on an urgent basis seeking interdicts, restoration of management and possession of business premises, occupation rights to certain properties, and registration of caveats on various properties to prevent the first respondent from disposing of matrimonial assets pending finalization of the divorce proceedings. The application was opposed on grounds of lack of urgency and incompetence of the relief sought.
The matter was removed from the roll of urgent matters, with no order as to costs.
For a matter to qualify as urgent, the certificate of urgency and founding affidavit must clearly and explicitly state when the need to act arose, enabling the court to determine whether the applicant acted timeously. It is not sufficient for an applicant to rely on general assertions of urgency or require the court to infer dates from annexures. The absence of clear indication of when triggering events occurred is fatal to an urgent application. The time and place of events triggering urgent action are crucial facts that must be alleged to demonstrate that an applicant acted timeously when the need to act arose.
The court observed that the bulk of the applicant's submissions pertained to the merits of the case rather than demonstrating urgency. The court noted there appeared to be long outstanding issues between the parties given references to assault in 2016 and infidelity by the first respondent, suggesting these were not urgent matters arising from recent events. The court remarked that describing a normal, non-threatening WhatsApp message as the trigger for urgency was "rather ridiculous." The court also commented that approaching the court on an urgent basis is a drastic step requiring justification, as it calls upon the court to leave everything else and immediately attend to the application, giving it priority status by jumping the queue.
This case reinforces the strict requirements for urgent applications in Zimbabwean civil procedure. It emphasizes that both the certificate of urgency and founding affidavit must clearly specify when the events triggering the need for urgent action occurred, enabling the court to assess whether the applicant acted timeously. The case demonstrates that courts will not accept vague references to urgency or require the court to search through annexures to determine when the need to act arose. It serves as a warning to practitioners that matrimonial disputes involving business and property interests cannot automatically be treated as urgent without proper demonstration of the temporal requirements of urgency. The judgment upholds the principle that urgent applications represent a drastic step that jumps the court queue and must be properly justified.