Mercedes Sayagues
Zimbabwean women scored a small victory when a magistrate was transferred from the civil and customary law section to the criminal section of Harare’s magistrate’s courts after complaints about his chauvinistic comments.
On November 23, about 100 women toyi- toyied in downtown Harare to protest remarks by magistrate Billiard Mukwasa. He told a newspaper that women were inconveniencing the courts by requesting peace orders against husbands, that men have the right to have affairs and many wives, and that women do not have rights to the marital home in case of death or divorce.
A dozen women’s groups wrote to the minister of justice that Mukwasa’s attitude “will affect the manner in which he will decide women’s rights arising from matrimonial disputes”.
Moreover, “the magistrate appears to condone violence against women under the pretext that women are no longer looking after their husbands”.
Coming after the controversial Magaya v Magaya ruling earlier this year, which fuelled a worldwide furore by upholding that in customary law daughters do not have the same inheritance rights as sons, Mukwasa’s speedy transfer restores a bit of confidence in Zimbabwe’s judiciary vis–vis women.
“It sends a message to other magistrates that they can’t take their prejudice into court and shoot their mouth off about it and we women are going to remain quiet,” says Thoko Matshe, director of the Zimbabwe Women Resource Centre and Network.
The transfer follows another landmark ruling two weeks ago that husbands are not allowed to rape their wives.
The tugs between Zimbabwe’s courts and women’s rights highlight the need to have the latter clearly spelt out in the new Constitution, says Matshe.