Judgment No. SC 15/18 Civil Appeal No. SC 266/15 appellant to its legal practitioners did not expressly state that it had agreed to the transfer of his indebtedness to Nyakudya. He was relying on an explanation given to him by Chitauro. Further, to compound matters, by the time he and Nyakudya wrote the letter proposing the transfer of his indebtedness the debt was already due as a letter of demand had been sent to him. Nyakudya’s evidence was to the effect that the debt had been transferred and that he had assumed liability in the place of the respondent. He accepted however that at no stage did the appellant state or intimate that it had cancelled the deed executed by the respondent. The court a quo failed to give due weight to the critical point that the deed of suretyship could only be cancelled by the appellant in writing in terms of clause 5 of the deed. Contracts are sacrosanct unless the evidence shows that they were not entered into freely and voluntarily. R.H Christie in Business Law in Zimbabwe at page 67 states: “The business world has come to rely on the principle that a signature on a written contract binds the signatory to the terms of the contract and if this principle were not upheld any business enterprises would become hazardous in the extreme. The general rule, sometimes known as caveat subscriptor rule is therefore that a party to a contract is bound by his signature whether or not he has read or understood the contract.” It is on the basis of this principle that the court a quo ought to have found that the respondent was still indebted to the appellant. There was no evidence before the court that showed that the deed of suretyship was cancelled by the appellant in writing. The court a quo thus erred in finding that the respondent was incorrectly sued as a debtor by the appellant. 2. Whether there was a violation of Section 8(2) of the Civil Evidence Act [Chapter 8:01]. 9