Zimbabwe's Judiciary : The New Battle front Against Corruption.
By Hosia Mviringi
Tuesday, 12 February 2019.
The Judiciary is just but one of the three pillars that make up a functional State.The others are the Executive and the Legislature, of course not forgeting the Media which is often referrd to as the Fourth Estate.Thus I too am an active member of the fourth arm of the State.Let me play my part.
Today I am focusing on the Judiciary which is in my view the most important of them all as the implimentation and enforcement arm of the State.
Parliament can make laws but without effective interpretation and enforcent its effectiveness remains a distant dream and a mirage.
Today I will focus on the recent developments in the Judiciary where a battle is brewing between the Prosecutor General , Law Officers and some senior officials within the Judiciary in Zimbabwe.
This involves some senior Government officials and some active legal practitioners.
In 2018 President ED Mnangagwa made a bold yet unprecedented step when he departed from the norm by appointing a Prosecuting Unit which was domiciled within the President's office.
To me this was a first step in an apparent Vote Of No Confidence in the Country's Judicial System as it was constituted then.Mr Kumbirai Hodzi was appointed Acting Prosecutor General.
When Mr Hodzi took up that role he made it clear that his mission and mandate was to ensure that the PG's office achieves a zero acquital rate.It sounded too ambitious to many then.
On 23 January 2019 Mr Kumbirai Hodzi was appointed as the substantive Prosecutor General.The appointment of Mr Hodzi was not without resistence.
The background is that when PG Hodzi was appointed he came in with a clear mandate to fight and crush Corruption.He immediately identified the Judiciary as the new frontier where the fight against corruption had suffered still birth in the past.Criminals would walk into Court through the front door and leave through the same entrance.
When Mr Kumbirai Hodzi came he declared war on corruption in the Judiciary as the first port of call.I outlined his interventions in my previous instalment.
Check article here:
http://zimbo24news.blogspot.com/2019/01/lawyers-demo-delivery-of-justice-or.html?m=1
The literal declaration of war on corruption within the Judiciary was never going to attract many friends for Mr Hodzi and company in a fraternity which had become a million dollar Industry on its own due to the large sums of money exchanging hands therein on a daily basis.
This fight included suspensions, arrests, transfers and re-assignments of officers from the Prosecutor General's office.Judges were not spared as the net widened to cleanse this sector of endemic Corruption and rent seeking behaviours and attitudes.
A case in point involves one Chris Mutangadura.
Prosecutor Chris Mutangadura made headlines a few days ago being the most senior Prosecutor to be posted or re-assigned to a less fashionable station at the Guruve Prosecuting Station under circumstances widely believed to be related to ongoing investigative proceedings against him for Corruption / bribery taking.
A letter by the PG as seen by this writer read , ''You are hereby being informed that with immediate effect you are transfered to Guruve National Prosecuting Station.All your work to be properly handed over to the National Director of Public Prosecutions for further action''.
A brief background check on Mr Chris Mutangadura shows that he surprised many in the fraternity when he came straight from the Law Faculty at the University of Zimbabwe in 2009 to occupy a very influencial senior position as Chief Law Officer.This was unprecedented.
Of course this was at the behest of the then National Director of Public Prosecutions at that time Mrs Florence Ziyambi.Undoubtedly to an curious mind this would easily smack of some vested interests in the case of Mrs Florence Ziyambi.
I am trying to take you, my reader, slowly through so that together we establish the interconnectedness of the players in this whole scheme of things.
This instalment will hopefully help the people of Zimbabwe understand how difficult it is to dismantle fully fledged ,well resourced and connected corrupt syndicates.
The understanding is that Mrs Florence Ziyambi was later on re-assigned to the Office of the President and Cabinet without specific duties, all on the back of corruption allegations and suspicions.
It is suspected that some senior Judicial officers and officials in the Justice Ministry in general and the NPA in particular were against the appointment of Mr Kumbirai Hodzi to the post of Prosecutor General.Mr Hodzi was largely unknown to these senior officials and understandably they couldnt take a risk with someone whom they had no idea how to handle or influence in prosecutorial matters.
Some senior officials within the Judiciary were actually pushing for one Misheck Hogwe to be appointed PG as he was known to them and seemingly an easy target for manipulation.
Now back to Mr Chris Mutangadura.He is by now a very experienced Lawyer and Prosecutor who had become part of the core team in the office of the Prosecutor General.He was now in a position to manipulate or influence the system to suit his selfish desires, not to mention that he was now ready to use his strategic position of influence to protect his handlers from the tight grip of the anti-Corruption Laws.
Like I said before, if laws are not well and effectively interpreted and enforced they remain a useless set of rules on a worthless piece of paper.Who was to interprete and enforce the laws if the system had kept a Corrupt, Captured and rent seeking interpreter and implimenter of the Law in the form of Corrupt State Prosecutors ?
Now in light of the foregoing , would anyone still wonder the cause of unprecedented failures of some very Clear cut cases that should just have gone the way of Convictions ?
Any wonder why most if not all these cases failed due to insufficient prosecutorial due dilligence ? Either investigations were half done or the prosecutors would just feign incompetence before a seemingly 'paid' judge.
Our judiciary had become just but a circus and a drama club whose actors would no longer be shy to recite their script in broad daylight.
Now consider the thick volume file full of cases ready for prosecution.All in one man's hands with some of them already aware of their fate thanks to Mr Mutangadura benevolence.Some had already made some private pledges / payments to have their cases either droped or weakened in readiness for acquital.Then all of a sudden its boom, Prosecutor Mutangadura is gone to Guruve and all cases transfered to a neutral person.
I think we now understand the reason for this predictable outcry by some of the most active members and beneficiaries of Corrupt activities who have become victims of the current Anti-corruption drive.
They are all baying for Mr Hodzi's blood.
Their desperation has seen them taking their fight to the office and person of the President himself as the appointing authority.
Its now understandable why Mr Mutangadura feels hard done by this decision such that he now sees loopholes in the same Constitutional provisions he has used in the past to convict others .And with the help of one senior official within the Justice Ministry Mr Mutangadura is now taking the President to the ConCourt over the appointment of Prosecutor General.He only begins to see the illegality now because he has allegedly been 'demoted'.What hypocrisy.
Mr and Mrs Ziyambi have allegations flying over their heads of working against and to undermine the President's reform efforts within the Judiciary in this Second Republic.Its always good to say it out openly so that one can defend themselves against the allegations.
We have no space for misfits at this stage of our national development.
There seems to be some familial hegemony within the Justice Ministry.Their influence therein cannot be underestimated.
They allegedly lead and or aid a cabal within President Mnangagwa's government which is so determined to frustrate any prosecutions against their members on Corruption charges.They are allegedly pushing the interests of the vanguished G40 cabal and recently the interests of the MDC Alliance in light of mass arrests of MDC Alliance leaders and supporters for 14 January 2019 stay away related violence.
Saviour Kasukuwere was at the High Court of Zimbabwe doing attachment work while most probably all his court records were being kept in the same place.
This cabal has connived with the opposition through the Law Society of Zimbabwe to flood the courts with legal challenges some of which are frivolous and vexatious and are designed to frustrate the justice delivery system in Zimbabwe.
We can see through the machinations of these individuals and sub-groups some of whom are well funded for sustained court challenges.
There is a nexus forming between the vanguished G40 cabal and the MDC Alliance with the former eager to protect their ill-gotten wealth while the later eager to protect its members against prosecution for crimes ranging from inciting violence to some serious treasonous ones boardering on illegal pronouncement of election results.
So the fight is real.The President will have to be very strong to win this fight and citizens' support and participation can not be over-emphasised.
The current onslaught on the Judiciary by some judicial sub-groups such as the Law Society of Zimbabwe , the opposition MDC Alliance and some elements within the government is a direct attack and challenge on the person and Office of the President as the appointing authority.
A challenge and or attack on the person and Office of the elected President of the Republic is a direct attack on the people of Zimbabwe who elected him into that office.
It is in the best collective interests of the Citizens of Zimbabwe to see to it that Corruption is crushed and vanguished by all means possible in order to deliver the Zimbabwe we all desire for future generations.
In order to effectively deal with corruption in this country the PG had to zoom his lenses into the judiciary.
But to achieve his goal of zero percent acquital rate he had to deal with corrultion within the Judiciary first , which unfortunately and coincidentally presents itself as the proverbial Alpha and Omega of Corrupt activities, thus the firing of Chief Magistrate Mishrod Guvamombe early this year.
Therefore a progressive citizenry should all rally behind the efforts by President and his team in government and work tirelessly to eliminate high level Corruption from the system.
Mr Chris Mutangadura is not immune to prosecution.If he is found to be on the wrong side of the law he will undoubtedly be subjected to due processes.He will have to defend himself against serious allegations of corruption and bribe taking, if these are found to be true.
In the same vein a strong warning should go to the current Justice Minister Cde Ziyambi Ziyambi to act in a way that compliments the President's efforts and the broader national collective vision of a Corruption free society.
There will be no sacred cows in this new fight against corruption.
The President through the Prosecutor General has chosen to attack the scourge from the roots upwards.
And the Judiciary is the tap root of Corruption in Zimbabwe.
It wont and it can't be business as usual this time around.
Its the Second Republic.
Kutsho mina !
By Hosia Mviringi
Tuesday, 12 February 2019.
The Judiciary is just but one of the three pillars that make up a functional State.The others are the Executive and the Legislature, of course not forgeting the Media which is often referrd to as the Fourth Estate.Thus I too am an active member of the fourth arm of the State.Let me play my part.
Today I am focusing on the Judiciary which is in my view the most important of them all as the implimentation and enforcement arm of the State.
Parliament can make laws but without effective interpretation and enforcent its effectiveness remains a distant dream and a mirage.
Today I will focus on the recent developments in the Judiciary where a battle is brewing between the Prosecutor General , Law Officers and some senior officials within the Judiciary in Zimbabwe.
This involves some senior Government officials and some active legal practitioners.
In 2018 President ED Mnangagwa made a bold yet unprecedented step when he departed from the norm by appointing a Prosecuting Unit which was domiciled within the President's office.
To me this was a first step in an apparent Vote Of No Confidence in the Country's Judicial System as it was constituted then.Mr Kumbirai Hodzi was appointed Acting Prosecutor General.
When Mr Hodzi took up that role he made it clear that his mission and mandate was to ensure that the PG's office achieves a zero acquital rate.It sounded too ambitious to many then.
On 23 January 2019 Mr Kumbirai Hodzi was appointed as the substantive Prosecutor General.The appointment of Mr Hodzi was not without resistence.
The background is that when PG Hodzi was appointed he came in with a clear mandate to fight and crush Corruption.He immediately identified the Judiciary as the new frontier where the fight against corruption had suffered still birth in the past.Criminals would walk into Court through the front door and leave through the same entrance.
When Mr Kumbirai Hodzi came he declared war on corruption in the Judiciary as the first port of call.I outlined his interventions in my previous instalment.
Check article here:
http://zimbo24news.blogspot.com/2019/01/lawyers-demo-delivery-of-justice-or.html?m=1
The literal declaration of war on corruption within the Judiciary was never going to attract many friends for Mr Hodzi and company in a fraternity which had become a million dollar Industry on its own due to the large sums of money exchanging hands therein on a daily basis.
This fight included suspensions, arrests, transfers and re-assignments of officers from the Prosecutor General's office.Judges were not spared as the net widened to cleanse this sector of endemic Corruption and rent seeking behaviours and attitudes.
A case in point involves one Chris Mutangadura.
Prosecutor Chris Mutangadura made headlines a few days ago being the most senior Prosecutor to be posted or re-assigned to a less fashionable station at the Guruve Prosecuting Station under circumstances widely believed to be related to ongoing investigative proceedings against him for Corruption / bribery taking.
A letter by the PG as seen by this writer read , ''You are hereby being informed that with immediate effect you are transfered to Guruve National Prosecuting Station.All your work to be properly handed over to the National Director of Public Prosecutions for further action''.
A brief background check on Mr Chris Mutangadura shows that he surprised many in the fraternity when he came straight from the Law Faculty at the University of Zimbabwe in 2009 to occupy a very influencial senior position as Chief Law Officer.This was unprecedented.
Of course this was at the behest of the then National Director of Public Prosecutions at that time Mrs Florence Ziyambi.Undoubtedly to an curious mind this would easily smack of some vested interests in the case of Mrs Florence Ziyambi.
I am trying to take you, my reader, slowly through so that together we establish the interconnectedness of the players in this whole scheme of things.
This instalment will hopefully help the people of Zimbabwe understand how difficult it is to dismantle fully fledged ,well resourced and connected corrupt syndicates.
The understanding is that Mrs Florence Ziyambi was later on re-assigned to the Office of the President and Cabinet without specific duties, all on the back of corruption allegations and suspicions.
It is suspected that some senior Judicial officers and officials in the Justice Ministry in general and the NPA in particular were against the appointment of Mr Kumbirai Hodzi to the post of Prosecutor General.Mr Hodzi was largely unknown to these senior officials and understandably they couldnt take a risk with someone whom they had no idea how to handle or influence in prosecutorial matters.
Some senior officials within the Judiciary were actually pushing for one Misheck Hogwe to be appointed PG as he was known to them and seemingly an easy target for manipulation.
Now back to Mr Chris Mutangadura.He is by now a very experienced Lawyer and Prosecutor who had become part of the core team in the office of the Prosecutor General.He was now in a position to manipulate or influence the system to suit his selfish desires, not to mention that he was now ready to use his strategic position of influence to protect his handlers from the tight grip of the anti-Corruption Laws.
Like I said before, if laws are not well and effectively interpreted and enforced they remain a useless set of rules on a worthless piece of paper.Who was to interprete and enforce the laws if the system had kept a Corrupt, Captured and rent seeking interpreter and implimenter of the Law in the form of Corrupt State Prosecutors ?
Now in light of the foregoing , would anyone still wonder the cause of unprecedented failures of some very Clear cut cases that should just have gone the way of Convictions ?
Any wonder why most if not all these cases failed due to insufficient prosecutorial due dilligence ? Either investigations were half done or the prosecutors would just feign incompetence before a seemingly 'paid' judge.
Our judiciary had become just but a circus and a drama club whose actors would no longer be shy to recite their script in broad daylight.
Now consider the thick volume file full of cases ready for prosecution.All in one man's hands with some of them already aware of their fate thanks to Mr Mutangadura benevolence.Some had already made some private pledges / payments to have their cases either droped or weakened in readiness for acquital.Then all of a sudden its boom, Prosecutor Mutangadura is gone to Guruve and all cases transfered to a neutral person.
I think we now understand the reason for this predictable outcry by some of the most active members and beneficiaries of Corrupt activities who have become victims of the current Anti-corruption drive.
They are all baying for Mr Hodzi's blood.
Their desperation has seen them taking their fight to the office and person of the President himself as the appointing authority.
Its now understandable why Mr Mutangadura feels hard done by this decision such that he now sees loopholes in the same Constitutional provisions he has used in the past to convict others .And with the help of one senior official within the Justice Ministry Mr Mutangadura is now taking the President to the ConCourt over the appointment of Prosecutor General.He only begins to see the illegality now because he has allegedly been 'demoted'.What hypocrisy.
Mr and Mrs Ziyambi have allegations flying over their heads of working against and to undermine the President's reform efforts within the Judiciary in this Second Republic.Its always good to say it out openly so that one can defend themselves against the allegations.
We have no space for misfits at this stage of our national development.
There seems to be some familial hegemony within the Justice Ministry.Their influence therein cannot be underestimated.
They allegedly lead and or aid a cabal within President Mnangagwa's government which is so determined to frustrate any prosecutions against their members on Corruption charges.They are allegedly pushing the interests of the vanguished G40 cabal and recently the interests of the MDC Alliance in light of mass arrests of MDC Alliance leaders and supporters for 14 January 2019 stay away related violence.
Saviour Kasukuwere was at the High Court of Zimbabwe doing attachment work while most probably all his court records were being kept in the same place.
This cabal has connived with the opposition through the Law Society of Zimbabwe to flood the courts with legal challenges some of which are frivolous and vexatious and are designed to frustrate the justice delivery system in Zimbabwe.
We can see through the machinations of these individuals and sub-groups some of whom are well funded for sustained court challenges.
There is a nexus forming between the vanguished G40 cabal and the MDC Alliance with the former eager to protect their ill-gotten wealth while the later eager to protect its members against prosecution for crimes ranging from inciting violence to some serious treasonous ones boardering on illegal pronouncement of election results.
So the fight is real.The President will have to be very strong to win this fight and citizens' support and participation can not be over-emphasised.
The current onslaught on the Judiciary by some judicial sub-groups such as the Law Society of Zimbabwe , the opposition MDC Alliance and some elements within the government is a direct attack and challenge on the person and Office of the President as the appointing authority.
A challenge and or attack on the person and Office of the elected President of the Republic is a direct attack on the people of Zimbabwe who elected him into that office.
It is in the best collective interests of the Citizens of Zimbabwe to see to it that Corruption is crushed and vanguished by all means possible in order to deliver the Zimbabwe we all desire for future generations.
In order to effectively deal with corruption in this country the PG had to zoom his lenses into the judiciary.
But to achieve his goal of zero percent acquital rate he had to deal with corrultion within the Judiciary first , which unfortunately and coincidentally presents itself as the proverbial Alpha and Omega of Corrupt activities, thus the firing of Chief Magistrate Mishrod Guvamombe early this year.
Therefore a progressive citizenry should all rally behind the efforts by President and his team in government and work tirelessly to eliminate high level Corruption from the system.
Mr Chris Mutangadura is not immune to prosecution.If he is found to be on the wrong side of the law he will undoubtedly be subjected to due processes.He will have to defend himself against serious allegations of corruption and bribe taking, if these are found to be true.
In the same vein a strong warning should go to the current Justice Minister Cde Ziyambi Ziyambi to act in a way that compliments the President's efforts and the broader national collective vision of a Corruption free society.
There will be no sacred cows in this new fight against corruption.
The President through the Prosecutor General has chosen to attack the scourge from the roots upwards.
And the Judiciary is the tap root of Corruption in Zimbabwe.
It wont and it can't be business as usual this time around.
Its the Second Republic.
Kutsho mina !
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