Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum Special Report Enforcing the Rule of Law in Zimbabwe which threaten the capacity of the judicial system to deliver justice. In part to address this problem, the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs sought to apply the High Court model to all other courts. He wanted seniority for one judge over others in all courts, ‘to have in place a person who will be in charge of the others in terms of administration, work assignments and court cases and so forth. Up to now, for instance, all the presidency [sic] have been equal and that has been very difficult. We want someone who is in a senior position to assign work to others.’1 Such a system would, of course, allow cases to be directed to judges thought to be politicallycompliant, as seemed to have happened in respect of the initial distribution of the MDC’s electoral challenges, even if some of the results did not follow that pattern. The Supreme Court and the Chief Justice The Constitution of Zimbabwe defines the Supreme Court as our ‘superior court of record and the final court of appeal’ (s80(1)) and the Chief Justice as ‘the head of the judiciary’ (s79A(a)). The Supreme Court Act (28 of 1981, cap 7:13) lays out its powers, functions and procedures. Section 24 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe also gives the Supreme Court ‘original jurisdiction’ for redress of alleged contraventions of the Declaration of Rights, by complainants or by those presiding over hearings in lower courts. Since the Declaration of Rights became justiciable in 1985, the Supreme Court has overturned provisions in many statutes that contravene constitutional rights. In deciding against the State on such issues, the Supreme Court appears to have annoyed authoritarian politicians of the ruling party. Two Supreme Court judgments were followed by amendments to the Constitution which rendered these judgments void. In the last five years, the relationship between the Supreme Court and State executive has worsened, as the court struck down the State’s telecommunications and broadcasting monopolies, s50(2)(a) of the Law and Order Maintenance Act, and the amendment2 to s5(4) of the Land Acquisition Act; confirmed that the State President can be sued in his official capacity; twice ruled that land acquisition and the eviction of farmers must follow legal provisions; found ‘fasttrack’ resettlement procedures to be unconstitutional; and endorsed the Administrative Court’s decision to require by 1 July 2001 a workable land policy from Government before allowing it to proceed with acquisitions after farms have been designated. At present, a number of sensitive political charges under the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act (LOMA) are currently pending in the Supreme Court for resolution under s20 of the Constitution. Among many other members of the MDC, Davison Nhaurwa asked that s44(1)(a) be referred for impairing his freedom of expression. Justice Chinhengo asked the Supreme Court to determine whether sections 51(2) and 58, under which Morgan Tsvangirai3 was charged with ‘terrorism’,4 1 Parliamentary Debates 27,62:6659. It incorporated retrospective provisions originally gazetted using the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act. Welshman Ncube strenuously rejected ‘that kind of law ... which seeks to legalise illegality, ... to make lawful that which is admittedly unlawful and which was unlawful when it was done... Parliament should not seek to legislate retrospectively’ (Parliamentary Debates 27,26:2754). 3 One independent paper reported State security plans to assassinate Tsvangirai and to ‘eliminate’ several ‘anti-ZanuPF’ personages, including two judges and prominent journalists (The Financial Gazette 7.6.01). 4 The docket disappeared from the Attorney-General’s Office. John Chimusoro Mabika was later charged with its disappearance. 2 41