Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum Special Report Enforcing the Rule of Law in Zimbabwe CHAPTER 1 WHAT IS ‘THE RULE OF LAW’? In the new millenium, sadly, Zimbabwe is a global pariah because our government is alleged to have trashed the rule of law and the Constitution on which is based its authority to govern. Government has repeatedly referred to the rule of law as ‘extraneous’ and ‘peripheral’. As a result, the government has lost its former legitimacy, both at home and internationally. The text of the Abuja Agreement made this very clear.1 Newspaper editors are not the only citizens to have condemned the government’s ‘sabotage’ of ‘the very foundation of the law-based society we all had hoped underpinned our nation’s democratic evolution’. The President of the Confederation of Zimbabwean Industries (CZI), Zed Rusike, was quoted as saying: 'For investors to continue to retain interest in Zimbabwe, government officials need to act responsibly and refrain from issuing hate and racial statements as well as respect the rule of law and the judiciary as competent institutions. Surely 20 years after attaining independence, Zimbabwe should be for all of us irrespective of race, colour, creed or political affiliation'.2 But what, exactly, is ‘the rule of law’? Law includes both the unwritten ‘common law’ of past custom and tradition, and ‘statutes’ or ‘acts’ passed by Parliament. However, as a collective mind-set and expectation of behaviour, ‘the rule of law’ goes beyond specific laws. ‘The rule of law’ stands in contrast to ‘the law of the jungle’ operated by the strong and powerful where the weak and powerless lose out. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) opens by stating ‘… it is essential, if a man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law…’ In Article 7, the rule of law is defined as equality before the law, including, ‘without any discrimination’, equal protection of the law. Discrimination or incitement to discrimination before the law is prohibited. Thus no-one is above or exempted from the law. The general public, political parties, ethnic groups, the Government – all must see themselves as equally subject to the law, and equally punishable if they break it. No-one may break the law with impunity, especially not a State President who is installed by swearing to uphold State law. No-one is ‘more equal than others’, as George Orwell put it in Animal Farm. As interpreted by our former Chief Justice, Anthony Gubbay, this equality before the law means that ‘everyone must be subject to a shared set of rules that are applied universally and which deal even-handedly with people and which treat like cases alike… It is completely unacceptable to qualify the rule of law... Rulers who pick and choose which laws they wish to obey by defining certain matters as “political” thereby vitiate the principle of equality before the law, setting one standard for themselves and another for the people they govern.’ 1 See Appendix 1; The Herald 8.9.01; The Daily News 8.9.01. Financial Gazette 7.12.00. 2The 3