JUSTICE, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs minister Emmerson Mnangagwa last Thursday said his ministry was reviewing the jurisdiction of chiefs with a view to expanding their responsibilities.
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He told Senate during a question and answer session that some cases flooding lower courts should be handled by traditional leaders.
Mnangagwa was responding to a question by senator Chief Chisunga who had asked him to explain government policy on safeguarding the integrity of traditional courts which people undermined.
“We are reviewing the extent of the jurisdiction of chiefs with a view to expanding their responsibilities in some areas of their competence,” Mnangagwa said.
“Personally, I believe it is necessary that some of the issues that flood the lower courts should be dispensed at the traditional customary courts.”
Mnangagwa said his ministry would bring a Bill to Parliament to make sure the dispensation of justice was in line with the current legal system practiced in the country.
Mashonaland West senator Mike Byton Musaka asked Mnangagwa to explain government policy on providing infrastructure for the chiefs’ courts saying the practice of having them do court sessions under trees was dehumanising.
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“If you go to the rural areas justice is delivered under a tree. I am asking this from a human rights point of view, as it is a bit dehumanising. Sometimes I feel like avoiding going to that court because of the conditions under which I am being tried,” Musaka said. But, Mnangagwa said holding court sessions under trees was a traditional practice.
“What we can do is to improve on what our grandparents established; the systems they established. Justice does not come from the room in which it is dispensed; it comes from the system that dispenses justice. It could be under a tree, in a river or mountain, but justice is what is dispensed not where it has been dispensed,” he said.
President of the Chief’s Council Fortune Charumbira said some police officers were ignorant of the laws of the country and refused to effect arrests ordered by chiefs’ courts.
