Court cases expected to determine the future of Zimbabwe’s popular anti-government newspaper the Daily News were postponed on Wednesday to next month, lawyers said.
”It has been postponed to March 3, by agreement … when everything will be finalised,” Daily News lawyer Mordecai Mahlangu said after the Supreme Court failed to sit as scheduled.
Johannes Tomana, a lawyer representing the government, said the postponement was ”purely administrative”.
The Daily News and the government have lodged several legal cases — with the former seeking to resume operations and the latter wanting the paper permanently banned.
The two-week delay means the status of the paper will remain uncertain following its closure last September and short-lived reopening last month.
It was closed down by armed police in September last year but resumed publishing on January 22 following a High Court order that forced police to vacate its premises and stop interfering with its operations.
Lawyers for the paper, launched about five years ago, have been shuttling between the country’s various courts since then.
The September closure was sparked by a Supreme Court ruling that declared the paper was operating illegally because it was not registered with the state-appointed media commission.
The media laws have been contested by the independent and foreign media in Zimbabwe, but on February 5 the Supreme Court upheld parts of it as constitutional.
The court ruled that it was a criminal offence for any journalist to operate without accreditation from the government-appointed body.
Fearing arrest, Daily News journalists refused to continue working for the paper without accreditation and on February 6, the paper vanished from the streets.
Since then the journalists have been idling around at their offices, with some staying at home. Some have reportedly quit the paper and sought employment abroad.
The journalists’ hopes were dashed on Tuesday when a High Court judge refused to consider an application seeking clarification on what rights they have to continue operating pending the outcome of their application for accreditation.
They had wanted the court to urgently declare that they can continue operating based on the law that allows a journalist who has submitted an accreditation application to work awaiting the processing of the application.
But Judge Alphas Chitakunye told the paper to follow normal court channels, arguing there was nothing urgent about it.
The judge said the paper had thought it was special by refusing to register when the law came into effect in 2002.
”Surely that was a gamble they took …that gamble was not in their interest,” the judge said. — Sapa-AFP