The High Court has overturned a 15-year rape conviction against a 25-year-old man after finding that prosecutors relied on the wrong legal provision in a case involving a 14-year-old girl, but convicted him of having sexual intercourse with a young person and reduced his sentence to three years.
Justice Bongani Ndlovu, sitting in Bulawayo, said the State had failed to properly frame the charge against Brighton Mazanga and had incorrectly combined the girl's age and alleged mental incompetence as the basis for treating her consent as legally invalid.
Mazanga had been convicted of rape by a lower court and sentenced to 15 years in prison after he had sexual intercourse with the girl three times at his home in Mkoba, Gweru, on January 3, 2026.
But on automatic review, Justice Ndlovu found that the evidence did not sustain the rape conviction.
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"The charge was drafted inelegantly and incompetently," the judge said.
The judge said Section 64(2) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act applied to children aged between 12 and 14, while the complainant was already 14 and therefore the provision could not be invoked merely on the basis of her age.
Section 64(3), meanwhile, concerns sexual conduct involving a mentally incompetent adult, but the judge found that the prosecution had not properly relied on that provision either.
"The law is clear: a female juvenile aged 14 years or older can consent to sexual intercourse," Ndlovu said, adding that consent could nevertheless be vitiated on other lawful grounds.
The complainant, who was born on April 13, 2011, was between 14 and 15 at the time of the incident.
According to the State's case, Mazanga met the girl in January, hugged her and invited her to town before taking her towards his home.
He allegedly promised her money and a mobile phone in exchange for sex.
At his house, the State said, he removed her clothes and had sexual intercourse with her before doing so twice again later that night.
The girl testified that Mazanga promised her a phone if she had sex with him and that she was subsequently given the phone.
She told the court that she did not consent to the sexual intercourse and that Mazanga knew about her mental condition because he had discussed it with her mother.
Mazanga, however, maintained that the sex was consensual, saying he had previously proposed a relationship to the girl.
The High Court found that the trial magistrate had erred in treating the girl's mental condition as automatically preventing her from consenting, particularly after finding her competent to testify.
Ndlovu said the complainant gave "eloquent, clear evidence" and that her testimony was coherent, meaning the trial court's finding that she was competent to testify could not be faulted.
The judge also examined the circumstances surrounding the sexual intercourse and concluded that the evidence demonstrated that the girl was capable of consenting.
"The evidence adduced proved that the complainant was capable of consenting and did consent to sexual intercourse three times with the accused person," Ndlovu ruled.
However, because she was below Zimbabwe's statutory age of consent of 18, the judge held that the conduct still constituted an offence under Section 70 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act.
"In the circumstances, the offence lay in her age, not in her mental challenges," he said.
The court therefore quashed the rape conviction and replaced it with a conviction for "having sexual intercourse with a young person".
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Mazanga's 15-year sentence was set aside and replaced with three years' imprisonment, backdated to the date of his original sentencing.
Ndlovu also criticised the drafting of the original charge, warning that criminal charges must be sufficiently clear for an accused person, particularly an unrepresented one, to understand the allegations being made against them.
"A charge must be drafted so that it is clearly traceable to the violated provision of the statute without undue difficulty," he said.
He said an unclear charge could prevent a trial court from properly explaining available legal defences to an accused person.
The judge further said that where several criminal allegations formed part of a case, they should be clearly separated so that the defence could understand the different components of the State's case.
The High Court ordered that Mazanga be recalled to court and informed of the review outcome.
