AfricanSeer News and Information Portal: Ignatius Chombo Going Through Divorce

Ignatius Chombo Going Through Divorce
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Jessica W on 01/03/2012 12:00:00


THE High Court on Monday threw away an urgent chamber application by Local
Government Minister Ignatius Chombo’s wife Marian Chombo to block the
determination of the couple’s divorce case as an unopposed matter.
This cleared the way for the divorce to be determined in the family law court
unopposed Thursday.
Chombo’s lawyers Wilson Manase and Advocate Thabani Mpofu, successfully
applied for Chombo’s defence to be struck off after she failed to turn up for
the pre-trial conference before Judge President Justice George Chiweshe.
The matter was set down for today but Chombo’s lawyers filed an urgent chamber
application to stay the determination of the case unopposed.
Justice Ben Hlatshwayo dismissed the urgent chamber application for lack of
urgency.
In her application, Chombo said the notice to attend a pre-trial conference was
served on her lawyers who could not reach her due to communication network
problems.
She argued that she was not in willful default and that when the notice of the
conference date came she was in South Africa.
Chombo feared she would “walk away from a marriage of over 26 years with
nothing” if the case was handled without her defence.
The dismissal of the case came at the time another judge was yet to determine
the application by the minister to bar the media from covering the divorce
proceedings.
Justice Antonia Guvava mid last year indefinitely reserved judgment on the
application.
The divorce case has dragged due to disagreements on property sharing.
Chombo claimed the minister had vast properties countrywide, an issue that was
contested by the Minister’s legal team.
The minister dismissed as unfounded the properties that Chombo was mentioning in
the pre-trial conferences.
Chombo and his wife separated more than 18 years ago and he is now seeking
divorce on the grounds that the marriage had irretrievably broken.