Judgment No. CCZ 3 /13 6 Constitutional Application No. CCZ 287/12 searches are conducted in prisons, but avers simply that they are carried out procedurally and that strict decency is observed. He also asserts, rather tersely, that the practice of solitary confinement has been abolished and that the applicant was never subjected to such confinement. Nevertheless, despite the laconic nature of these denials and the failure to elaborate them, they are quite categorical in contradicting the applicant’s averments. Taken in the overall context, they cannot be rejected or disregarded as mere fabrication. In the final analysis, I am of the considered view that the conflicting positions of the parties in casu are irreconcilable on the papers in several critical respects. The affidavit evidence does not clearly establish the veracity of all of the applicant’s complaints to the extent that it can be said that there is a “ready answer to the dispute between the parties in the absence of further evidence”. As was properly conceded by counsel for the applicant, all of the relief sought herein involves having to make findings of fact, and only a few of the relevant facts are resoluble on the papers. I accordingly conclude that there are material and significant disputes of fact that can only be resolved by the calling of oral evidence in trial proceedings. DISPOSITION In determining this matter, it is necessary to have regard to the primary purpose of section 24 of the former Constitution. As was succinctly explained by Baron JA in Mandirwhe v Minister of State 1986 (1) ZLR 1 (S) at 7: “The purpose of s 24 is to provide, in a proper case, speedy access to the final court in the land. The issue will always be whether there has been an infringement of an individual’s fundamental rights or freedoms, and frequently will involve the