Pretoria – The urgent application launched by Norma Mngoma, the wife of Malusi Gigaba, to have her arrest and prosecution declared unlawful, was stood down today and will only be heard on Thursday.
This is because the case will take some time to argue and the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria's urgent roll was congested on Tuesday.
Mngoma, accompanied by a friend, attended today's proceedings and patiently waited until her matter was called shortly before lunch.
She wants her arrest and subsequent prosecution overturned, saying her arrest was an orchestrated scheme to intimidate and bully her. Gigaba also claimed it was to ultimately gain unlawful access to her gadgets and to delete specific information.
She said her arrest is no more than a campaign to tarnish her good name and reputation for nefarious reasons.
According to her, the matter is urgent as her constitutional rights are being trampled and is continuously violated each day in which the criminal case is hanging over her head.
She was arrested in August following claims that she had damaged a luxury car by scratching it. She was detained overnight in a police cell before she was granted R5 000 bail.
Gigaba briefly appeared in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Monday on charges of assault and malicious damage to property and the case was postponed to October 23.
The Hawks, in their papers filed in opposing her urgent application, said her arrest was justified. The Hawks said her application is in any event not urgent.
According to them, she can vent whatever grievances she has during her criminal trial.
Her lawyer, Victor Nkhwashu, however, said as the matter involved her constitutional rights, it was clearly urgent. He said the criminal court was not the forum for her to raise these objections, therefore she turned to the high court.
Pretoria News