Zimbabwe Judge President Paddington Garwe has defended the performance of the country’s judiciary, rejecting charges that it lacks independence and is subservient to President Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF party.
Officially opening the 2006 legal year in Harare on Monday, Garwe challenged critics of the bench to come out in the open and point out their specific grievances to judicial authorities.
”If there is a problem with the way the judges do certain things, for example, this should be highlighted,” said Garwe, who was promoted to his position after the government purged independent judges from the bench and is widely perceived as a staunch ally of Mugabe.
”As a judiciary, we have acknowledged the fact that we are not above criticism and that there is always room for improvement. Accordingly, I wish to assure the nation at large that the judiciary will continue to work hard to ensure that all persons approaching the courts will get justice, irrespective of their status in society,” said Garwe.
Garwe also said Zimbabwe is facing numerous challenges, among them sanctions slapped on the country by the West and the prevailing harsh economic environment.
He said courts will always take into cognisance ”any extraneous considerations in dealing with the various cases coming before them”, but said judicial officers will, however, remain guided by their sense of professionalism and their oath of office.
”Despite some negative sentiments expressed in some quarters about the independence of the judiciary in this country, I wish to place it on record that although we face a number of constraints, we in the judiciary will strive to do the best we can to ensure that justice is served. We will continue to do so without fear or favour,” Garwe said.
The judge president lamented poor remuneration and working conditions of judges, magistrates and other judiciary officials, most of whom he said operate without computers, decent houses and official government cars.
”In the High Court, for example, the judges are without computers and spend long hours researching legal points. In countries like South Africa, such information would be available at the touch of a button and judges have qualified assistants to help them research,” said Garwe.
The judge president said in the magistrate’s courts a number of regional magistrates and chief law officers are using public transport after presiding over or prosecuting serious cases such as fraud, car jacking and rape.
”Some judges are without adequate accommodation as it is not possible for them either to purchase or rent reasonable properties on current salaries. All these aspects unfortunately have an impact on the quality of performance and output and ultimately the administration of justice itself,” he said.
Zimbabwe’s bench has been criticised by both local and international rights groups, including the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, for its failure to defend the rights of ordinary citizens and opposition activists in the face of increasingly repressive rule by Mugabe’s government.
Judges ‘compromised by Mugabe’s largesse’
Too many of Zimbabwe’s judges and magistrates have benefited from the government’s political largesse and the bench cannot be deemed independent, local human rights lawyers and activists said in reaction to Garwe’s statement.
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) executive director Arnold Tsunga said the general consensus among the legal fraternity in the country is that the judiciary is compromised both at the personal level of individual judges and at the institutional level.
”Let’s look at conditions of employment of the judiciary. The judges and magistrates are mired in poverty, the judge president mentioned it. The conditions of service are not attractive to the extent that it will be difficult for them to have personal independence when they are economically compromised,” said Tsunga.
Tsunga — whose ZHLR has taken Mugabe’s government to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) accusing it of violating human rights, undermining the judiciary and the rule of law — said judges have compromised themselves by accepting land controversially seized from whites.
Some of Zimbabwe’s judges, such as justices Ben Hlatshwayo and Chinembiri Bhunu, allegedly personally invaded farms, while several other judicial officers were also allocated land by Mugabe’s government.
Tsunga said: ”A number [of judicial officers] have accepted farms which are contested. These farms have not come as written perks [in their contracts of employment] but as discretion perks by politicians.
”When judges and magistrates are being given and accept discretion perks because of poverty, surely their personal independence is compromised as well. Institutionally, they are also compromised because the operating environment is providing them with serious challenges. Judges are given political cases to handle by politicians bent on settling personal scores.”
A top human rights lawyer and the faction-riddled opposition Movement for Democratic Change’s (MDC) spokesperson on legal affairs, David Coltart, said the bench’s failure to deal expeditiously with political cases has also cast doubt on its independence and professionalism.
Coltart said: ”The problem with this judiciary is that it is not seen as independent because of what happened in the last five years in terms of failure to deal with certain political cases expeditiously.”
He was referring to the courts’ failure to finalise several petitions by MDC candidates against victory by Zanu-PF candidates during elections in the past five years, including the petition by the MDC’s leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, against Mugabe’s re-election in 2002.
Although election petitions are dealt with as urgent, the High Court has over the past three years failed to conclude Tsvangirai’s petition, forcing the MDC leader to appeal last year to the Supreme Court, the country’s highest court of law. — ZimOnline