THE media onslaught on Justice Charles Hungwe after he recently issued an order unfavourable to the State makes sad reading and clearly shows that the country still has a long way to go in terms of the independence of the judiciary.
Justice Hungwe has come under a sustained barrage of attacks from Zanu PF politiburo member Jonathan Moyo and the State media for issuing an order for the release of human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa after she was arrested allegedly for obstruction of justice on March 17 when she went to the aid of clients and members of the opposition MDC-T party, who were being arrested by the police a day after the referendum on the draft constitution
Moyo, who derisively called the court order a “farm or night order”, accused Justice Hungwe of breaching procedure in his High Court order to release Mtetwa.
The insinuation from Moyo is that it is unheard of for judges to give orders outside normal working hours. In fact, judges the world over give orders at any time of the day based on the merits of the case before them. This brazen attempt to besmirch the name of Hungwe is nothing short of disgraceful and an indictment of the shameless interference in the judiciary by Zanu PF. In less than a week of this development, the State media published a story attacking Justice Hungwe for failing to sentence a 55-year-old man, Jonathan Mutsinze, whom he convicted over 10 years ago on charges of murder and armed robbery committed in 1998.
This begs the obvious questions: Why is this only being revealed 10 years later and why only after Justice Hungwe’s court order that has obviously riled Zanu PF? When there is such sympathy for a convicted armed robber and murderer, who could have been hanged by now, in the media, then you know that there is more to this issue than meets the eye. You wonder why in the same vein the State media have been silent on similar issues such as why the appeals brought by the MDC-T to the courts on the irregularities of the 2000 parliamentary and 2002 presidential elections are still to be heard or finalised more than 10 years later.
It is baffling that there is an outcry when a convicted murderer and armed robber is not sentenced, but silence when individuals such as the former Finance minister Chris Kuruneri and businessman James Makamba were held in remand for almost a year denying them their right to prove their innocence. It is this kind of double standards that present ominous signs of trouble ahead of the watershed elections scheduled for later this year.
It is clear that Justice Hungwe, the founding chairperson of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association, has fallen out of favour with the system because of his judicious rulings and should exit the bench. He is no longer a comrade-inarms! Several judges who have gone against the State have been forced off the bench. What happened to then Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay, Justices Michael Majuru, Justice Moses Chinhenga, among others?
We cannot have a nation where judges are hunted down for merely exercising their professional mind!
