Zimbabwe judge quits, goes into exile

Zimbabwe judge quits, goes into exile

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe began a pruning of white judges from the bench by first forcing the Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay (L) to quit

• High Court orders police to quit Daily News

• Mugabe undermining judiciary

• Strive Masiyiwa, building of empire

• Police storm Daily News Press

• Judge gives Daily News green light

• Daily News publishes in Nigeria

• Masiyiwa vows to fight to 'last drop'

By Staff Reporter
29/01/04
A TOP Zimbabwe judge whose judgements in favour of the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) were ignored by the government has been driven into exile, it has been learnt.

Justice Michael Majuru, the Judge President of the Administrative Court quit the bench two weeks ago after the government threatened him with an investigation following claims that he was biased towards the ANZ, publishers of The Daily News and The Daily News on Sunday.

Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said Majuru had cited illness in his resignation letter faxed from South Africa, but a relative of the judge who spoke to newzimbabwe.com from America said the judge had been put under undue pressure and feared his career could be wrecked by a pre-determined investigation.

”If you are a judge and your judgements are routinely ignored then you know your services are unwanted and you are blocking someone’s will in the corridors of power. It was best for him to leave with his reputation intact,” said the relative who cannot be named.

Majuru follows in the footsteps of several senior judges who have left the country, either after being forced out or being targeted by the government with spurious claims of bias. These include former Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay, Justice Fergus Blackie and Justice James Devittie. Most are now serving on Australian and British immigration courts, assisting in the handling of asylum claims.

Majuru’s problems with the government began late October when he authorised the then banned Daily News to publish after it had been denied a licence by the government appointed Media and Information Commission (MIC).

Majuru found that the MIC was in fact improperly constituted and was therefore, not in a position to refuse an application by The Daily News for an operating licence after the Supreme Court had rejected to hear the paper’s constitutional challenge on disputed media legislation.

He also ordered the MIC to approve ANZ's registration by 30 November last year after ensuring it is properly reconstituted in line with the Access to Information and the Protection of Privacy Act. The Act is being challenged in the Supreme Court.

"We order that the applicant be issued with a certificate of registration by the respondent," said the judge. “The Daily News appeal succeeds given the findings of bias that we have made. This is a unanimous decision.”

The paper’s lawyers had argued that the head of the media commission, Tafataona Mahoso, was biased against the paper, as reflected in his statements to the media and the articles he wrote in a column in the state-run Sunday Mail.

But a day after the ruling, the police raided The Daily News offices again, with information minister dismissing the judge’s ruling as “academic”.

Following another Daily News appeal to the same court, the state-controlled Herald newspaper came up with sensational claims that Justice Majuru had been overheard saying he would again rule in favour of The Daily News, forcing him to recuse himself from the case.

The case was then heard by another Administrative Court judge, Justice Selo Nare who on 19 December again gave the Daily News the green light to publish. He merely upheld Majuru’s earlier ruling.

But information minister Jonathan Moyo railed against both Nare and Majuru, calling their judgements “scandalous”, “political” and “unacceptable”. The government again ignored Nare’s judgement and the police kept The Daily News offices sealed.

Still in December, The Daily News petitioned the court again and Nare still ruled in favour of the paper but received threats through a letter delivered to his chambers. The letter accused him of bias “against our good government” and of having been “bought to sell out our mother country.”

It warned a ruling in favour of The Daily News “will result in serious suffering by you personally and members of your family.”

“Take this as a mere threat at your own peril,” said the letter purporting to be from a hitherto unknown group calling itself “War liberators and sons and daughters of the soil.”

Nare and Majuru are not the only judges who have suffered as the government sought to undermine them. High Court Judge Benjamin Paradza was arrested in chambers and detained in police cells on allegations of corruption. He appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled that his arrest was unconstitutional.
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