4.7.3 Domestic Criminal Prosecutions Domestic criminal prosecutions were seen to be a common feature of many transitional justice processes, both pre and post-transition, although in the pre-transitional period these were frequently prosecutions of the opponents of the authoritarian regime rather than human rights violators. This was obviously different post-transition, and the ITJDBP details enormous numbers of such prosecutions: for the 59 countries, there was total of 1,765 such prosecutions, with an average of 30 per country, as opposed to 467, and an average of 7 per country, in the pre-transitional period. Zimbabwe has an enviable record for prosecuting ordinary criminals, even an over-zealous record of creating a very large number of dubious crimes requiring prosecution, it has not seen this translate into an assiduous policy of prosecuting human rights abuses. This is logical given the ease of using impunity to protect state employees. For example, it was noted that murder was excluded from both clemency orders in 2000 and 2008, but allegations of high numbers of murder during elections in 2000, 2002 and 2008 have not seen any urgency by the state to investigate or prosecute. There are even highly egregious murders for which the courts have ordered the police to investigate that have wholly ignored by the police, the most notorious of these involved a Central Intelligence Organisation operative, Joseph Mwale, who remains at large after incontrovertible proof of his involvement in the murder of Talent Mabika and Tichaona Chiminya (Human Rights Forum. 2001). Understanding the reluctance of the state to investigate itself, the human rights community in Zimbabwe, as early as 1998, instituted a policy of seeking redress through the courts by means of civil litigation. 4.7.4 Civil trials As was noted in the quantitative analysis, recourse to civil suits has not been a widely used transitional justice mechanism. Of the 59 countries in the data base, civil suits were documented only 29 times. Zimbabwe, by contrast, has instituted a very large number of civil suits. Since its formation in 1998, and up to 2008, the Human Rights Forum through its Public Interest Unit received a total of 7,250 cases of human rights violations. Although current figures are not available, but 588 cases are still active and at various stages of litigation, and a previous report indicated a 90% success rate for civil suits (Human Rights Forum. 2006 (a)). The State is still to honour the awards to the victims. Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) and other human rights organisations, such as Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association (ZWLA) have also instituted such civil actions. The rationale behind this strategy was to provide pressure upon the state to honour its obligations to uphold the law, but also to counteract the denial by the government that human rights violations had taken place. Whilst civil litigation did not directly threaten the perpetrators, the judgements did, and do provide substantial evidence of guilt, as well as providing moral justification for the victims. An analysis of 291 cases seen by the Human Rights Forum between 1999 and 2006 demonstrated the value of this strategy (Human Rights Forum. 2006). Of the cases that had been concluded, almost 90% had been concluded in favour of the plaintiff, strongly making the case that gross human rights violations had taken place and that 39