JUSTICE IN ZIMBABWE 109 ____________________________________________________________________ Topic 8 8. THE ARREST OF THE PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY OF THE LAW SOCIETY Background to the arrests On 17 April 2002167 the Minister of State for Information and Publicity, Professor Jonathan Moyo, made a statement attacking the Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ) and its President, Mr Sternford Moyo. He accused it of working with its British and other “imperialist” donors to dilute, if not destroy Zimbabwe’s sovereignty, by invoking “fictitious notions of judicial independence.” He condemned Mr Moyo for questioning the competence of some of the decisions made by the Supreme Court and for calling for constitutional reforms to prevent the packing of the Supreme Court with pro-government judges. Professor Moyo said “Media reports attributed to the ever-partisan president of the Law Society allegedly calling for constitutional reforms to ‘prevent the packing of the Supreme Court with proGovernment judges’ are, if true, clear proof that the Law Society, under Sternford Moyo, has become an anti-Government, anti-black and pro-British sponsored opposition to African nationalism in Zimbabwe. The import of the LSZ position is that the bench should be ‘packed with anti-Government’ judges who are presumably white and steeped in Rhodesian jurisprudence like the departed Anthony Gubbay and his fellow travelling racist judges who laboured in vain to hijack the court for partisan interests on behalf of the British and unrepentant white commercial farmers in the MDC.” Professor Moyo went on to say that the Law Society President’s “Uncle Tom-like statement” was unfortunate in so far as it constituted self-evident contempt of the present bench of the Supreme Court. “The time has come for Zimbabweans, especially those in the legal profession, to demand that the court should not offer lawyers who have such open contempt for judges for clear political reasons, the right of audience. Instead, such bad lawyers, like Sternford Moyo, should join open politics and become the poor politicians that they are.”