Zimbabwean judge Joseph Musakwa applauded
Posted by ZDN on December 7, 2009
PRESS STATEMENT
After months of stress and the heart-ache of trying to load a lifetime’s work onto the back of dusty trucks, Mrs Hester Theron (79), a commercial farmer from the Beatrice district of Zimbabwe, has been given a glimmer of hope.
On November 6, a Harare magistrate gave Mrs Theron a month to vacate her dairy farm, where she has lived for the past 50 years, or face a prison sentence for refusing to leave the land purchased legally by her husband in the late 1950s.
Mrs Theron was sentenced under the Gazetted Land (Consequential Provisions) Act and was sentenced to a three-month jail term, suspended for five years on condition she was off the farm by 8 December.
At the court hearing, Mrs Theron’s lawyer asked the magistrate to refer sentencing to the High Court, as the value of her farm exceeded his jurisdiction as a magistrate.
The lawyer also asked that Mrs Theron’s eviction be deferred until she had been compensated for the farm by the government, due to her age.
“If the magistrate had evicted her without her having received any compensation, he would literally have been sending her to her grave with no money after more than half a century of hard work – given that the government doesn’t have money to compensate her,” said her son, Deon Theron.
On Friday December 4, High Court Judge Joseph Musakwa heard Mrs Theron’s urgent application and ruled that her eviction be halted until the appeal is heard – which could be a matter of months, or even years.
“This is fantastic news and our family thanks Justice Musakwa for following due process and upholding the law. This ruling will help to restore confidence in Zimbabwe’s judicial system,” said Mr Theron, who is president of the Commercial Farmers’ Union.
“The Zimbabwean government’s failure to respect the rule of law has created chaos and conflict, causing the economic collapse and the immense suffering of ordinary Zimbabweans,” Mr Theron said.
“My mother’s case is one of thousands of needless traumas that have ruined people’s lives across the country. She was taken to court by someone who had a fake offer letter and was trying to drive her off her farm to suit his own agenda,” explained Mr Theron.
“Friedenthal farm is more than a home to our mother, it is her ‘kumusha’ and the place which connects her to our late father,” Mr Theron said. “We are all deeply relieved that she will for now be able to continue farming.”
In Zimbabwean culture, a ‘kumusha’ is one’s place of abode and it is a concept that denotes significant respect. It is a place where one lives and dies and as such is viewed as sacred.
Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara has expressed concern that the political upheaval in the country has caused Zimbabweans to operate contrary to their own culture and value systems.
In April, Mr Mutambara accused farm invaders of “reaping what they did not sow”, of breaking the law and destroying the economy. He also told policemen to uphold the law.
Senior judges and other members of the legal fraternity are among the beneficiaries of the land grab, causing untold damage to the reputation of the Zimbabwean judiciary.
In February 2004, VOA News noted that the disintegration of the reputation of judiciary had begun three years previously when then Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay was forced to leave office for fear of his life.
“Since then, a further eight judges have departed, the last a few weeks ago, when a judge who had ruled in favour of the banned daily newspaper, The Daily News, which was engaged in a long legal wrangle with the government, fled to South Africa,” VOA News wrote in the same article.
According to VOA’s news report, nearly all of Zimbabwe’s senior judges had left over the previous three years.
Given the mounting pressure faced by the judiciary, High Court Judge Musakwa’s ruling is the more laudable.
Zimbabwe Democracy Now
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12-09-2009
4:37 am
Angel watcher
The Cost of Tyranny
It is now ten years since the collapse of the Zimbabwe economy got under way in earnest in 1999. It actually started in 1997 but only really began to slide two years later when the effect of policy changes took root. It is perhaps time that we looked back on this lost decade and ask ourselves what sort of price have we paid?
The numbers are astonishing – if you assume an average potential growth of 5 per cent in GDP over this decade then the actual cost in terms of lost GDP earnings is over $76 billion. In human terms, life expectancies have halved and over 3 million people have died before they would have died in the decade before.
For South Africa, the collapse of Zimbabwe has cost over $43 billion or 350 billion Rand and that estimate is a third lower than the cost estimated by Tony Blair when he visited South Africa three years ago. The crisis has cost the region perhaps a million jobs – a total that rivals the job losses attributable to the recent global melt down in financial markets.
In human terms the collapse has been nothing short of a catastrophe – a third of our population has left the country – nearly 4 million going to neighbouring States. About half a million people have lost their jobs and nearly two million people displaced internally. Absolute poverty is now the norm with average Zimbabweans receiving less that a dollar a day on which to subsist – the international measure of living below the level required for essential needs. This is confirmed by the fact that over 70 per cent of the national population was being supplied with their basic food needs at the beginning of this year.
On Sunday I attended a meeting where I was told of an incident where a woman encountered a man who was clearly insane wandering about a shopping centre. She was told he was a former member of the security forces who had been involved in torture. I understand there are thousands who are haunted by the crimes they have committed under State direction.
The consequences of the genocide in 1983/87 in many areas of Matabeleland have not been addressed and remain as a shadow over many communities. The effects of Murambatsvina in 1995 when 1,2 million people were displaced by a State campaign to force people back into the rural areas. Thousands died in the aftermath and hundreds of thousands are still homeless.
All of these are the consequences of a political tyranny that has sought to defend its hold on power and privilege. While the country slid into poverty and collapse accompanied by joblessness, homelessness and despair, a small minority who came to power in 1980, have become wealthy beyond their imaginings. They shop in Dubai and Johannesburg and holiday on the ski slopes of Europe. Their children go to the finest Universities and schools in the world. Many have homes in Zimbabwe that would do the wealthy in the west proud.
They conduct a clever and professional campaign to cover up their crimes. In offices in Toronto, London, Washington and Johannesburg, highly paid experts counter the attempts by the victims in Zimbabwe to tell their stories. Dozens of websites spew out their propaganda and people with false names correspond across the globe. Inside Zimbabwe they are terrified of any independent sources of news and information. The Prime Ministers news letter, launched this year in an attempt to counter a savage media campaign run by State agencies inside Zimbabwe, is feared even though it is by no means propaganda.
Attempts to reform the media and allow new broadcasting and TV channels have been met with total resistance even though they agreed to the reforms in the GPA. Only 12 per cent of the reforms negotiated over two years under the facilitation of SADC have been implemented in 9 months of political squabbling. No progress on democratic conditions for elections, no progress on the rule of law, freedom of assembly and association, no progress on the enforcement of contract law and respect for property rights, no progress on media reform.
Instead we are faced with a flood of propaganda about “pirate” radio stations, “sanctions” (shopping restrictions) and “regime change”; as if elections are not all about regime change by democratic means. In place of real reform we continue to see harassment of the political opposition, illegal arrests and prosecution, the use of the legal system, (not for justice) as a mean of suppression. Political violence continues across the country with thousands of militia deployed and active and communities fearful of a knock on the door at midnight.
We are waiting, like everyone, for some news of the discussions that have been taking place over the past two weeks. These talks were not about negotiations – they were about a time table for implementing what all the Parties have already agreed and signed up to in the GPA. Why they have taken so long is a mystery to me – what is there to talk about? They signed up to the deal, all that remains is to get on with the job of implementing the agreement and in full.
It is obvious that once again we in the MDC are being asked to compromise. Quite frankly it is difficult to see any reason why we should. We won the 2008 election – hands down, we clearly control two thirds of the country through local authorities. Everyone knows full well that in a genuine election with free and fair conditions that the opposition to the MDC would be miniscule. I cannot see us compromising on any of the more substantive issues but you can be sure there will be a number of peripheral ones which they will trumpet.
We have suffered under a tyranny for 30 years. Believe me we are quite prepared to suffer for a bit longer if at the end we can elect a leadership that we can trust with our future under a system that will allow us to dismiss them if they fail us or abuse our trust. After all that is what democracy is all about.
It is raining and the crop season has started well. We were able to get a small quantity of seed and fertilizer into the hands of 700 000 families in the rural areas – enough for them to feed themselves if we get a decent season. As Mr. Tsvangirai said last week, pray for a decent Christmas for all of us – we deserve and need it.
Eddie Cross
8th December 2009