PAYNS BOAT WORKS (PVT) LTD
versus
MINISTER OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT, PUBLIC WORKS
AND NATIONAL HOUSING
and
CITY OF HARARE
and
YARNFIELD ENTERPRISES (PVT) LTD
HIGH COURT OF ZIMBABWE
MANGOTA J
HARARE, 19 March, 2018 & 15 May, 2018
Opposed Matter
M Chakandida & Advocate Damiso, for the applicants
F. Chingwere, for the 1st respondent
C Kwaramba, for the 2nd respondent
I Ndudzo, for the 3rd respondent
MANGOTA J: It is not the business of the court to compel parties to contract. Nor is it its duty to draw up a contract for them. The court’s business is to ensure that parties who conclude a contract abide by its terms and conditions.
Where one party breaches the contract and the aggrieved party approaches the court for redress, the aggrieved party will, in all probability, receive the sympathy of the court. It will, in the mentioned regard, call upon the offending party to abide by the terms and conditions of the contract which it signed with the other.
A person who breaches a lease which he concluded with another cannot move the court, through the guise of a declarator, to compel the innocent party to observe the contract the terms of which he violated. Where he does so, the court will not take him seriously at all. It will, in all probability, regard his suit to fall into the realms of frivolity and vexatiousness.
The above cited paragraphs describe the circumstances of the applicant in a very graphic manner. The applicant is a legal entity. It alleges that it concluded a lease with the second respondent in 1964. It states that the first respondent under whose supervision the second respondent operates violated its contractual rights with the second respondent. The first
