RIGHTS BEHIND BARS A Study of Prison Conditions In Zimbabwe 2018 5. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND FINDINGS 5.1. Pre-trial detention in Zimbabwean prisons Most of the prisons visited by ZACRO and the Forum are custodial institutions meant to house convicted and sentenced prisoners. Therefore, the discussion in this section revolves around the practice at Harare Remand Prison, one of the main places where detainees are confined pending trial. There were numerous discoveries about accused and detained persons who had been held for periods that are way longer than the constitutionally ordained periods of pre-trial detention. The first case involved an inmate who had been arrested in 2007 and had been in remand since then. This means the accused had been on remand for more than 10 years. There were two State witnesses, one of them had passed away and the other one was nowhere to be found. He had a pro deo lawyer whom he alleged that he had last contacted him many years back. The accused person had neither a remand date nor a trial date. The accused did not know what to do with his case given the circumstances, he wanted to apply for bail but his lawyer was slow in responding to this wishes. He last received a relative visitor in 2011 (ZACRO and the Forum, Harare Remand Prison Monitoring Visit Report, 6-7). The second case involved Lameck Akim, a prisoner who had been in remand for more than seven (7) years, since March 2010. In October 2016, he applied for bail but instead the trial started on November 2016. The matter was then remanded to 7 February 2017, but could not go to court because of fuel challenges. He had a pro deo lawyer, but was not in touch with him. He does not know what happened to his case since he failed to appear on the 7th of February 2017. He rarely received visitors and wished his trial could kick off. The third case involved a prisoner accused of murder who had been in prison for 6 years 10 months at the time of the monitoring visit. He had a pro deo lawyer as well, but due to fuel shortages experienced by the prison at that time, the accused person failed to appear in court twice. The fourth reported case involved another murder accused inmate, Albert Nherera, who had been in prison for five (5) years. The accused had legal representation, but he alleged that the trial had been postponed since 2015 due to lack of witnesses.52 The experiences of the four detained persons interviewed are just a ‘tip of the iceberg’ as there are hundreds of pre-trial detainees at Harare Remand Prison. There is no doubt that the periods for which many prisoners have been placed in remand violate the requirements set out in the Constitution and standards in international human rights instruments. International and domestic law requires an accused to be brought to court within 48 hours of their arrest and to be detained for a reasonable period of time stipulated by a competent court thereafter. In the case of S v Tau,53 the High Court found that a delay of five years in finalising a trial was due to the State’s administrative inertia and incompetence, and could not be attributed to the accused person. Sadly, some prisoners have been in detention for more than 10 years despite international and domestic standards suggesting that they should be released. 52 53 22 ZACRO and NGO Forum, Harare Remand Prison Monitoring Visit Report, 7. 1997 (1) ZLR 93 (H). See also S v Chakwinya 1997 (1) 109 (H). EGAP