SUSAN NJANJI, Harare | Tuesday
ZIMBABWES government has stepped up its campaign to drive senior members of the country’s judiciary off the bench, accusing judges of bias in favour of whites and the opposition.
The first casualty was chief justice of the Supreme Court Anthony Gubbay, who last week was asked to retire early.
Two others were approached following emergency talks of the ruling ZANU-PF party, which passed a vote of no confidence in the judiciary.
Cabinet minister and presidential representative Jonathan Moyo said in a statement that the “very system of our national governance is now under threat” from the “partial and biased application of the law by the Supreme Court.”
Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa, accusing the judiciary of bias against the government, last month said: “We must begin to exorcise from all our institutions the racist ghost of (former Rhodesian leader) Ian Smith, and we do so by phasing out his disciples and sympathisers.”
Former justice minister and now parliamentary speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa said all judges seen to be working against the executive and legislature in their push for land reforms should go.
Efforts to weed the judiciary come in the wake of a series of Supreme Court verdicts against the government and in favour of white commercial farmers and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Last year, the court issued a series of verdicts against the government’s controversial land reforms, sparking criticism and even threats of physical harm from war veterans who told judges to resign or be forced out of office. The Supreme Court last year ordered police to remove thousands of landless blacks occupying white-owned farms.
It also told President Robert Mugabe’s government to craft a workable and legal land reform scheme by July 1, or risk being barred by the courts from taking any more land.
This year, the court struck down as unconstitutional a new law enacted in December that would have forbid courts from invalidating results in 37 parliamentary constituencies won by the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party. – AFP