DISTRIBUTED BY VERITAS TRUST Tel: [263] [4] 794478 Fax & Messages [263] [4] 793592 E-mail: veritas@mango.zw 16 Veritas makes every effort to ensure the provision of reliable information, but cannot take legal responsibility for information supplied. Judgment No. SC 37/18 Civil Appeal No. SC 433/16 [32] In determining the issue of good cause without resolving the dispute on the facts, the decision of the court resulted in an injustice. The interests of the minor children were not addressed at all and the application for an upward variation of their maintenance was treated in the same cursory manner as the application by the appellant herself, which application was viewed by the court as an attempt to correct what she believed had been a bad bargain. The court should either have heard evidence itself in order to determine the issues before it or alternatively referred the matter to trial. It did neither. In this respect it was therefore wrong. INTERESTS OF MINOR CHILDREN ALWAYS PARAMOUNT [33] A court, such as the court a quo, must always keep in mind that the interests of the minor children are always paramount. In considering those interests, the court should not allow itself to be misled by the appearances that the parties give. It must, in addition to any evidence given, be guided by its own experiences and sense of what is fair. It must take a pragmatic view of the means of the respondent - Lindsay v Lindsay 1993(1) ZLR 195(S), 199 A-B, 202 B. [34] The need to have due regard to the best interests of the minor children has been part of our law for some time now. Indeed, with the advent of the new Constitution, s 81 (2) thereof has codified this position and provides that in every matter concerning a child, it is the child’s best interests that are paramount and that minor children are entitled to protection, particularly by the High Court as the upper guardian of the rights of children. [35] Cretney S M in Principle of Family Law, (Third Edition, Sweet & Maxwell, London, 1979) at page 493 states:-