Litigants and Litigators: Women HRDs 23 were also placed on the record. The prosecutor, Michael Reza, opposed the bail application and after Mtetwa’s lawyers made submissions the prosecutor applied that the matter be postponed to 20 March. The magistrate similarly noted that the matter was not so urgent that it should continue that evening, and she postponed the state’s response to the bail application to 11:15 on the following day, being 21 March 2013. Mtetwa was then moved to Harare Chikurubi female prison at around 17:30. On 21 March she was denied bail and was remanded to 3 April. An appeal was filed at the High Court and was set down for hearing on 25 March 2013. Justice Musakwa agreed with Mtetwa’s lawyers that Magistrate Gofa had erred and misdirected herself when she denied the human rights lawyer bail on 20 March 2013. Magistrate Gofa based her dismissal of the bail application on the basis that if released on bail, Mtetwa would interfere with police investigations which were reportedly in their “infancy”, as well as cause “commotion” as she purportedly had done when she was arrested on Sunday 17 March 2013. The magistrate ruled that the said commotion would hinder the police from carrying out their investigations. Justice Musakwa said Mtetwa should not have been denied bail by the lower court and the police should have shed light on the nature and scope of the investigations that remained outstanding and, further, that the court should not have denied liberty to a legal practitioner of repute, like Mtetwa. On 5 April the prosecutor maintained the charges of obstructing the course of justice and also added new allegations. Her trial commenced in May 2013 and she was discharged at the end of the state case on 27 November 2013. The state prosecutors filed an appeal against the discharge at the end of the state case on 2 May 2014, five months later, and well out of time. This appeal is still pending. 19 March 2013: Roselyn Hanzi, who was in the company of another lawyer, Harrison Nkomo, was advised by police officers led by Detective Assistant Inspector Maria Phiri that their client, another lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, was being moved to the Law and Order Section at Harare Central Police Station from Rhodesville Police Station. The policewoman denied the lawyers access to Mtetwa and advised them that she would not hesitate to detain all lawyers who were at Rhodesville Police Station if they did not immediately leave the station and wait for them at Law and Order Section. The lawyers proceeded to Law and Order Section and were advised, after about 20 minutes, that Mtetwa had in fact been taken to the magistrates’ court without them. 2.4.2 Asserting their role as lawyers and HRDs There is no single or simple solution to the challenges of fostering a more nuanced understanding of the role of women human rights lawyers in an increasingly hostile and repressive environment. To counter this hostility, women lawyers need to remain assertive and constantly demonstrate their worth and capabilities. Some proactive women human rights lawyers set up their own firms so that they can work on their own terms. This is a good coping mechanism, which is worthy of emulation. In addition, women lawyers simply work harder and longer in their existing firms, and have thus proven that they are just as good as – if not better and more tenacious than – their male counterparts. Human rights work is also not restricted to criminal litigation, and women lawyers can also be effective by participating in human rights promotion and protection by assisting with