King Misuzulu recognition: Prince Mbonisi wants throne battle to be referred back to Zulu royal family

The lawyer for Prince Mbonisi Zulu, the brother of the late Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu, says the ongoing royal succession saga should be sent back to the Zulu royal family to restart the identification process.

The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) on Thursday continued hearing arguments in an application for leave to appeal, filed by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The president is seeking to overturn a 2023 ruling by the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria that declared his recognition of King Misuzulu kaZwelithini as unlawful.

King Misuzulu ascended to the throne following the deaths of King Zwelithini and Queen Regent Mantfombi Dlamini in 2021.

Ramaphosa then officially presented King Misuzulu with a certificate of recognition at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) on 29 October 2022.

Prince Mbonisi challenges Ramaphosa’s recognition of King Misuzulu

The president’s legal team argued On Wednesday that he acted within the provisions of the Traditional and Khoi/San Leadership Act when recognising King Misuzulu.

The recognition followed a KZN High Court decision, which found that King Misuzulu’s identification –based on a royal family meeting held on 14 May 2021 – complied with Zulu customary law.

However, Prince Simakade Zulu challenged the legitimacy of that meeting, stating that it had been convened under false pretences.

He claimed the identification process, therefore, failed to adhere to customary law.

Prince Mbonisi’s legal representative, Advocate Menzi Simelane, expressed similar concerns in court on Thursday.

Simelane told the SCA bench that the late king, while a monarch, was first and foremost the head of his own household – comprising himself, his wives, and his children.

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Therefore, the customs and rituals specific to his immediate family must be observed just as much as the broader traditions of the Zulu nation.

He argued that if proper customary procedures had been followed, Prince Mbonisi and his siblings would not have been excluded from their role in the process of identifying the next king.

“The case being made is that in our own family, Prince Mbonisi, being the most elder now that the king has since been deceased, could not lead that family in the manner that custom dictates for the sole reason, and no other, that there were other participants who got themselves involved in those processes and things turned out the way that they turned out.

“But by Zulu customs strictly, everybody should have observed the leadership in that house, in that family, in the same way that it happens in every other clan,” Simelane said.

Watch the court proceedings below:

He called for Ramaphosa’s appeal to be dismissed with costs and requested that the dispute be sent back to the royal family to begin the identification process anew.

“The point would be ‘what should happen then’, the matter would be referred to the appropriate place, which is the Zulu royal family, to do what they ordinarily would have done.”

King Misuzulu’s identification questioned

Meanwhile, Advocate Thabani Masuku, representing the Zulu royal princesses, argued that Ramaphosa failed to confirm whether the May 2021 meeting involved recognised royal family members.

Masuku contended that the validity of the recognition decision hinged on the legitimacy of the identification process.

“In other words, a lawful identification decision is a requirement for a lawful exercise of a recognition decision. 

“We have submitted that the president did not have a lawful identification before him.

“He also did not have an application by the royal family that could have justified him exercising the powers that he did in recognising the King Misuzulu.”

The judgement in the matter has been reserved and will be delivered at a later stage.