Crisis Coalition Press Release – 13 Feb: Dark clouds hover over constitution-making process as arrests and intimidation of MDC supporters continue.

While the Parliament Select Committee, which is spearheading the constitution making process, is set to deploy teams for the outreach meetings, a dark cloud hovers over the success of the process owing to the arrests and intimidation of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters in mostly peri-urban and rural areas. According to a member of COPAC, the committee is expected to gazette names of teams carrying out the outreach program today, 3 February 2010. A total of 630 people are carrying out the outreach over a period of 65 days countrywide.

Although the process is witnessing significant progress following almost two weeks of uncertainty owing to disagreements between the political parties, arrests of MDC supporters on trumped up charges and terror campaigns by suspected state agents, members of the uniformed forces and ZANU PF supporters in mostly peri-urban and rural areas continue. According to reports received by The Coalition, the terror campaigns are aimed at ensuring the adoption of the Kariba Draft constitution or maintenance of the current constitution, amended 19 times over a period of 23 years. These reports could ultimately result in a skewed outcome.

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Prudence Mabhena - lead singer for Liyana

So incredibly exciting! A film about a Zimbabwean band has made it onto this year’s Oscar nomination list, in the  ‘Best Documentary Short Subject’ category.

‘Music by Prudence’ tells the story of Prudence Mabhena, the lead singer of Bulawayo band Liyana.

Zimbabwean singer songwriter Prudence Mabhena, age twenty-one, was born severely disabled into a society where disabilities carry the taint of witchcraft; she is more likely to spend her life hidden away in a tiny hut than on a stage in the center of a city. Her story is the story of many of the disabled kids of Africa, a story of abandonment and abuse. But Prudence and her seven young band members, all disabled, have managed to overcome stereotypes and inspire the same people that once saw them as a curse (taken from the documentary website)

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We have just included content from the National Constitutional Assembly Draft Constitution (2001) in our online constitution resource page.

The NCA’s Draft constitution emerged from public inputs which the NCA, working through its own structures and those of its member institutions, received between May 1997 and December 2001 (a period of four and a half years). The final draft of the NCA constitution was published in September 2001, and public debate encouraged through October and November 2001. The draft, included here in our constitution resource, was agreed and finalised at an all stakeholders conference held in December 2001.

A full copy of the draft constitution, in PDF format, is available for download from the ‘Constitution Documents’ tab on our resource page.

The NCA provide the following summary of the key features of its 2001 draft constitution.

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ZLHR Press Release – 1 Feb: Attorney General (AG) Johannes Tomana on Monday 1 February 2010 conceded that his law officers and prosecutors had at times misjudged when they unnecessarily invoked section 121 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act (CPEA) to effectively reverse the granting of bail to accused persons.

Prosecutors and law officers from the AG’s Office have on numerous occasions abused a controversial provision of the CPEA by invoking section 121 to keep accused persons in custody despite them being granted bail by the courts. This practice has had the effect of keeping individuals in custody for a further seven days to allow the State time to appeal the granting of bail. In almost all cases the appeals were either never filed, or were dismissed by the superior courts.

Because of this practice Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) had, in recent months, protested that the section was being used selectively and unlawfully by the AG’s office against human rights defenders and legitimate political activists in order to persecute these individuals, even where courts have found no evidence that they would pose a threat to the interests of justice, society or the State, if they were to be released on bail.

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Section of leaked Zanu PF document

Recent media reports have argued that the Zanu PF party has “no intention whatsoever of sharing power in the future”. The reports refer to an internal Zanu PF strategic working document drafted by the ‘Zanu PF Constitution Making Process Working Group’ in November last year, which was apparently ‘leaked’ to the media in January this year. You can download a copy of the leaked document here (PDF – 41 pages in length, 3.13 MB).

The document outlines different positions on a future constitution between the Zanu PF and MDC parties. Some of the perceived differences of opinion are subjective, and there is not necessarily any evidence that the MDC party does think the way Zanu PF assumes it does. The purpose of the document is clear: it is “to enable Zanu PF political mobilisation teams to concentrate on the issues that are likely to be contested in the constitution-making process” – and as becomes obvious in the reading of the text, to give those teams the arguments for the Zanu PF position.

On individual human rights:

The authors of the strategic document outline several fundamental rights which they state the MDC will seek to include in a future constitution that the Zanu PF has not listed as individual human rights. These are:

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Magistrate Samuel Zuze's offer letter

Please see our Action Alert below.

Farmers in Chipinge have been having a terrible time in recent days. SW Radio Africa reported yesterday that two farmers, Dawie Joubert and the ex-President of the CFU, Trevor Gifford, were arrested yesterday for apparently being ‘in contempt of court’. SWRA reported that the men had been going to the assistance of four other farmers – Algernon Taffs, Mr Z.F Joubert (Dawie Joubert’s father), Mike Odendaal and Mike Jahme – who were all convicted for refusing to leave their properties. (The full details affecting these farmers on SWRA).

We have just been advised that Trevor Gifford and Dawie Joubert are now facing the weekend in a Mutare cell, after a court case organised from Chipinge failed to take place today because there was no magistrate available to hear their case. The CFU’s current president, Deon Theron, told SWRA yesterday that lawyers in the Chipinge area were refusing to take the case, and that they were also battling to find legal representation for the men.

In fact, both men should not be imprisoned at all.

A last minute stay of eviction was granted by the High Court on Wednesday after an urgent application was filed by the farmers’ legal representatives shortly after their sentencing. The High Court ruled that they could remain on their properties until the appeal against their conviction and sentences were concluded. But Magistrate Dzuze on Thursday refused to recognise the High Court order and is being accused of ‘grossly exceeding his jurisdiction.’ Joubert and Gifford had tried to deliver a letter to Dzuze clarifying the High Court’s position, but the Magistrate instead responded by ordering their arrest  (via SWRA).

Sources told us yesterday that the real reason for MagistrateZuze’s zeal is because he is lined up to be a beneficiary of Trevor Gifford’s farm. Zuze’s position of power affords him the opportunity to ignore the rule of law, and use it to achieve his own personal objectives. His actions make a total mockery of any principle of justice, and reveal him to be unfit for his job.

ZLHR Press Release – 25 Jan: High Court Judge, Justice Chinembiri Bhunu, on Monday 25 January 2010 declared Peter Michael Hitschmann an adverse or hostile witness, whom the State is at large to cross-examine.

Justice Bhunu, who delivered his long-delayed ruling in an application filed by the State seeking to impeach its main witness in the ongoing trial of Deputy Agriculture Minister-Designate Roy Bennett said Hitschmann’s demeanor in the witness box constitutes that of a hostile or adverse witness.

The Judge said Hitschmann portrayed the demeanor of a deeply aggrieved citizen who has an axe to grind with the State and its functionaries.

Justice Bhunu ruled that Hitschmann presented himself as a “melancholic wounded weeping soul who has been gravely brutalized and tortured at the hands of the State, its organs and functionaries.”

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