Acting KwaZulu-Natal judge president Isaac Madondo will on Wednesday give his ruling on an application for an interdict to stop Prince Misuzulu kaZwelithini from becoming the king of the Zulu nation.
Madondo will deliver his judgment in the Pietermaritzburg high court where he heard arguments on the application in January this year.
Whichever way he rules, it is likely the legal fight over who should succeed to the throne, which has divided the royal family, will not end there and may well be taken on appeal.
Zulu princesses Ntandoyenkosi Zulu and Ntombizosuthu Zulu-Duma sought the interdict, claiming that the will of the late King Goodwill Zwelithini, who died in March last year, was a forgery. They want that to be interrogated in a trial at which handwriting experts would have to testify. They say that until then, there should be no announcement of a new king.
In the will, the late regent named Queen Mantfombi Dlamini Zulu, who is considered in Zulu custom to be the “great wife” because she hailed from Eswatini royalty, as his heir.
But she died before she could ascend to the throne.
In her will, she named her eldest son Prince Misuzulu as her successor.
The princesses say that if the late king’s will is a forgery, then Misuzulu's claim to the throne falls away.
However, lawyers acting for the other side of the family, including prime minister Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, have argued that it is all irrelevant because notwithstanding the will, Prince Misuzulu was the rightful heir to the throne, the core royal family had pronounced on this, and no interdict or court challenge to the will would change that.
The other matter Madondo will rule on is a legal bid by Queen Sibongile Winifred Zulu, the king’s first wife and mother of the princesses, for a declarator from the court that her civil marriage in 1969 was in community of property, which would entitle her to a half share of the late king’s estate.
Her lawyers argued that King Zwelithini was “precluded” by law at that time from entering into any other customary marriages with his five other queens.
Buthelezi’s lawyers, however, said it was perfectly legal, that the queen could not now “wish away” the other wives, and that it was a matter best left to the executor of the estate.
TimesLIVE
Judge to rule on whether Prince Misuzulu can become Zulu king
Image: Sandile Ndlovu
Acting KwaZulu-Natal judge president Isaac Madondo will on Wednesday give his ruling on an application for an interdict to stop Prince Misuzulu kaZwelithini from becoming the king of the Zulu nation.
Madondo will deliver his judgment in the Pietermaritzburg high court where he heard arguments on the application in January this year.
Whichever way he rules, it is likely the legal fight over who should succeed to the throne, which has divided the royal family, will not end there and may well be taken on appeal.
Zulu princesses Ntandoyenkosi Zulu and Ntombizosuthu Zulu-Duma sought the interdict, claiming that the will of the late King Goodwill Zwelithini, who died in March last year, was a forgery. They want that to be interrogated in a trial at which handwriting experts would have to testify. They say that until then, there should be no announcement of a new king.
In the will, the late regent named Queen Mantfombi Dlamini Zulu, who is considered in Zulu custom to be the “great wife” because she hailed from Eswatini royalty, as his heir.
But she died before she could ascend to the throne.
In her will, she named her eldest son Prince Misuzulu as her successor.
The princesses say that if the late king’s will is a forgery, then Misuzulu's claim to the throne falls away.
However, lawyers acting for the other side of the family, including prime minister Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, have argued that it is all irrelevant because notwithstanding the will, Prince Misuzulu was the rightful heir to the throne, the core royal family had pronounced on this, and no interdict or court challenge to the will would change that.
The other matter Madondo will rule on is a legal bid by Queen Sibongile Winifred Zulu, the king’s first wife and mother of the princesses, for a declarator from the court that her civil marriage in 1969 was in community of property, which would entitle her to a half share of the late king’s estate.
Her lawyers argued that King Zwelithini was “precluded” by law at that time from entering into any other customary marriages with his five other queens.
Buthelezi’s lawyers, however, said it was perfectly legal, that the queen could not now “wish away” the other wives, and that it was a matter best left to the executor of the estate.
TimesLIVE
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