ZIMBABWEAN Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay has publicly rebuked Robert Mugabe’s government for “harassment” of Zimbabwe’s judiciary, saying the state had a basic misunderstanding of the rule of law.
In his customary remarks at the opening of the legal year – his only speech outside the confines of legal cases put before him – the 69-year-old jurist denounced the authorities’ refusal, on Mugabe’s orders, to enforce repeated judicial rulings for action to end ongoing violence by ruling Zanu PF party activists.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Home Affairs Minister John Nkomo were conspicuously absent from the ceremony, which was attended by 11 of Zimbabwe’s 27 judges at the High Court, acting German ambassador Werner Kohler and heads of the legal profession.
Four of Zimbabwe’s six white judges were present among the scarlet-robed jurists.
Gubbay said judges’ orders demanding an end to lawlessness were “not to prevent the government from pursuing land resettlement. This has never been the aim or policy of the courts, which unhesitatingly accept that the past inequities in the distribution of land must be redressed urgently,” he said.
“But the most disturbing conduct has been harassment of the High Court and Supreme Court judges by war veterans and their followers. Judges should not be made to feel apprehensive for their personal safety.”
Militants claiming to be ex-guerrillas from the 1972-80 independence war in former Rhodesia stormed the Supreme Courtroom on November 24 just before a scheduled hearing of a constitutional test case on the rights of invaded farmers.
“Disappointingly, there was no official condemnation of the incident, not a word was heard from the Minister of Justice,” said the Chief Justice.
Diplomats felt the speech by the internationally-respected Gubbay may increase pressure on Mugabe by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and UN secretary General Kofi Annan to restore the rule of law, and accept a plan proposed by UN Development Programme experts for land reforms that will safeguard white farmers’ rights and attract international donor funding.
Gubbay and the other four members of the Supreme Court, Zimbabwe’s highest tribunal, are due January 19 to hear another crucial test case in which MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai is contesting Mugabe’s attempt to bar investigation of corruption and gross malpractice during last June’s general election.