Supreme Court rules: Self-represented litigants ca...

Supreme Court rules: Self-represented litigants can't recover legal fees

Nyashadzashe Ndoro

Chief Reporter

The Supreme Court of Zimbabwe has settled a dispute over costs between Tendai Bonde and National Foods Limited, with the court dismissing Bonde's application for review of taxation of a bill of costs.

The dispute arose from a previous case in which Bonde, representing himself, was awarded costs on a party-and-party scale. However, when he submitted his bill of costs for taxation, several items were disallowed by the Registrar of the Supreme Court.

Bonde challenged the Registrar's decision, arguing that certain items, including costs for consulting legal practitioners and scanning and photocopying documents, were unnecessarily disallowed. However, the court found that Bonde, as a self-representing litigant, was not entitled to recover costs for legal services.

The court also ruled that the Registrar was correct in disallowing costs for scanning and photocopying documents, as these services are available for free through the Judicial Service Commission's electronic filing system.

In a counter-application, National Foods Limited successfully argued that items 1 and 15 of the bill of costs, relating to charges for consulting legal practitioners, should be disallowed.

"In taxing the bill of costs submitted by the applicant, the second respondent applied the correct principles and properly exercised her discretion except in respect of items 1 and 15 of the bill relating to charges for consulting legal practitioners," Justice Nicholas Mathonsi ruled.

"The applicant was not entitled to recover those charges because he was a self-representing litigant in the matter in which he was awarded costs by the Court.

"A self-representing litigant, with no benefit of legal counsel throughout the proceedings, cannot go behind the scenes and consult legal practitioners who do not feature anywhere in the Court proceedings, for a fee and later seek to recover the costs of such legal service from the losing party. Allowing those legal costs in a bill of costs is clearly wrong.

"Regarding costs, there is no reason why they should not follow the result in the usual way.

"In the result, it is ordered that: The applicant’s main application be and is hereby dismissed with costs.”