The Daily Telegraph
19th January 2007
By Peta Thornycroft in Harare
President Robert Mugabe: Increasingly repressive
Zimbabwe’s justice system, once considered a model for the rest of Africa, has collapsed after being starved of funds by President Robert Mugabe’s government, one of the country’s most senior judges has claimed.
In an unprecedented attack on the government by the judiciary, Judge Rita Makarau told an audience of officials of the ruling Zanu-PF and diplomats that the justice system was so corrupt it undermined the country’s democracy.
She alleged that senior staff at the justice ministry were assisting litigants “with long delayed judgments, for a fee”.
Judge Makarau, the second most prominent justice in Zimbabwe and the first woman to occupy the position, also attacked the “inhuman and degrading conditions” of holding cells at police stations, which are crammed with suspects awaiting trial.
She said that in one province more than 100 murder suspects had yet to be brought to trial because the High Court did not have the resources to fund proceedings.
“It is wrong to make the judiciary beg for its sustenance from central government,” she said.
Her outspoken comments were made at a function marking the start of the 2007 session of Harare’s High Court.
“We have managed to avoid… shortcomings in the local educational system by sending our children to schools and universities in South Africa, Australia, United States and United Kingdom.
“When we need complex medical procedures that local hospitals cannot now provide, we fly mainly to South Africa.
“Yet when we have to sue for wrongs done to us, we cannot do so in Australia or South Africa and have to contend with the inadequately funded justice system in this country.”
As Mr Mugabe’s regime has become increasingly repressive, most of the country’s experienced judges have quit or have gone into exile. He has subsequently filled the benches with inexperienced lawyers sympathetic to Zanu-PF.
In 2001 Zanu-PF activists raided the Supreme Court in Harare, danced on the bench and threatened the former chief justice, Anthony Gubbay. When he sought and failed to get protection from the government, he retired early.
The International Bar Association condemned the affair and other instances of intimidation of Zimbabwe’s judges as having “put the very fabric of democracy at risk”.
David Coltart, the opposition MP and founding member of the Movement of Democratic Change, said: “Since 2000, the law, and the justice system have been used as a weapon against legitimate democratic opposition and spurious charges have been brought against opposition leaders, activists and supporters.
“Judges delayed politically sensitive matters, such as electoral petitions, release of activists, including legislators, which caused serious miscarriages of justice.”
He said that some judges had betrayed their independence by backing the government’s appropriation of white-owned farms.
Patrick Chinamasa, the justice minister and author of most of Zimbabwe’s most repressive legislation, declined to comment yesterday, saying that he was “still on holiday”.