JUSTICE IN ZIMBABWE 25 ____________________________________________________________________ of the torture, the then Minister of Defence, Moven Mahachi, tried to play down the entire incident by ridiculously suggesting that the journalists had scratched themselves. He did, however, concede in the High Court that what had happened was wrong. President Mugabe later defended the military saying that their actions were understandable as a response to the attempted coup story. When the matter came before the High Court the Minister and the Permanent Secretary for Defence said that the military did not take orders from judges. In the aftermath of this incident, members of the judiciary, led by the Supreme Court, sent an open letter to the President requesting him to reaffirm that the rule of law would be adhered to in Zimbabwe. The President refused, and instead suggested in a televised address that the judges involved had committed “an outrageous and deliberate act of impudence” and should resign if they wished to enter politics. Nearly a year after the incident a case was brought in the Supreme Court to try to force the police to investigate the journalists’ allegations of torture and to bring to justice those responsible.34 The Supreme Court found that for nine months no action whatsoever had been taken to address the charges laid by the applicant, and thereafter what was done was so minimal as to justify the inference that the investigation was not being regarded seriously. The Commissioner of Police had not done all that his duty required of him. The court found that this failure to investigate the case violated the victims’ constitutional entitlement to protection of law, including their right to require the police to perform their public duty of law enforcement by investigating the alleged crimes, arresting the perpetrators (if the investigation so warranted) and bringing them to trial. The court accordingly ordered the Commissioner of Police “forthwith” to institute or continue a comprehensive and diligent investigation of the alleged offences. More than two years later, however, nothing appears to have been done to comply with the court’s order. Indeed, far from having the alleged offences investigated in accordance with the Supreme Court’s order, it seems that the government actively condones them. In June 2002 The Herald reported what the Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa (an ex-Minister of Justice) told the African Commission for Human and People’s Right fact finding mission to assess the human rights situation in Zimbabwe. Mr