Mkize children may bury mom

A GAUTENG father has been unsuccessful in attempting to interdict his two children from viewing their mother's corpse or arranging their mother's funeral after the Gauteng High Court dismissed his urgent application.

Qatimbi Mkhize is the estranged husband of deceased Audrey Mkhize and had sought an urgent application from the high court in which he attempted to interdict his biological children, Fanyana and Nombula Mkhize born from the marriage between him and Audrey, from making any funeral arrangements, also interdicting them from viewing their mother's body at the funeral parlour or removing her body from the funeral parlour.

The two children, who relocated to a home in Lenasia with their mother after a breakdown in the parents' marriage during 2015 and an unfinalised divorce, already started making arrangements for their mother's funeral which was set to take place on March 25.

The Mkhize children, prior to receiving notice of the urgent application for the desired interdict, spent R75 000 on burial plans but due to family disputes were delayed.

“(Qatimbi) states that as early as March 17, 2022 and after agreeing initially that the funeral be arranged by him out of the former matrimonial home, it became apparent that the members of the late Mrs Mkhize's family were insisting that the funeral be conducted out of the Lenasia house and that the deceased be buried at Avalon Cemetery. This was not acceptable to Qatimbi,” court documents say.

However, according to the Mkhize children, their father never demanded the right to arrange the funeral and stopped communication with them on March 17 despite them communicating to him that their mother's funeral would be on March 25.

The Mkhize children said they did not have any contact with their father for seven years after he evicted them and his wife, occasioning their move to Lenasia. Qatimbi evicted his family from their home after he was released on parole. He was convicted of murder in 2007 and spent eight years in imprison.

Judge Johan Moorcroft said: “The married couple had disagreements about the performance of traditional Zulu rituals in the matrimonial home and the late Mrs Mkhize discouraged him from performing and proceedings with these rituals on the basis that she was a born-again Christian.

“These disagreements contributed to the breakdown of the relationship…

“The late Mrs Mhkize's express wishes were not before the court but one must infer from the evidence that it would have been her wish that she be buried under the supervision of her children out of the house she shared with them, and not under the supervision of the applicant with whom she had cultural differences and with whom she last lived on a permanent basis in 2007, and for a brief period in 2015 when she was evicted and interdicts were obtained against her and the two children,” said Moorcroft.