Acting High Court Judge Moses Chinhengo, who was appointed to deal with the Fishrot case, yesterday refused to recuse himself from the matter for alleged bias.
Fishrot minnow Nigel van Wyk brought an application for the judge to recuse himself after the judge refused to grant a postponement for unrepresented accused to secure legal representation, and “forced” them to enters pleas.
When the accused refused to plead to the charges against them, the judge entered not guilty pleas on their behalf. Chinhengo said the allegations of Van Wyk have no merit, as they fail to establish a basis for bias on his behalf.
According to him, the accused has been in custody for the past four years, with the start of the trial nowhere in sight.
As the presiding officer, he felt it his duty to get the trial started, and this was by taking the pleas of the accused. The judge said the accused are prejudiced with the pace the trial has been progressing, and this is against the constitutional guarantee of a speedy and fair trial.
With regards to the legal representation of the accused, judge Chinhengo said although it is the right of the accused to appoint their own legal representatives but are currently without means to pay their fees, they could have approached him to use his discretionary powers to oblige the State to pay for their lawyers on the scale of Legal Aid.
However, he said, it seems their preferred lawyers do not want to work on that scale.
With regards to the allegation that the accused need time to study the charges against them, he said they had ample time since 2021 when the charges were first filed against them to get acquainted with it, and they were all legally represented then, and their legal representatives should have explained the charges to them.
He said Van Wyk dismally failed to prove any of the averments in the application, and in his view no basis was laid towards his impartiality or otherwise.
Mbanga Siyomunji, who filed the application on behalf of Van Wyk, informed the judge they will appeal against the ruling in the Supreme Court.