5. Violence and intimidation after Presidential election
After the Presidential election in March 2002 ZANU (PF) supporters resumed their campaign of violence against MDC supporters by mounting a countrywide campaign of reprisals against perceived MDC supporters. Large numbers of opposition supporters have been displaced. Particularly in rural areas and commercial farms, this has been accompanied by destruction of property and theft. Some torture bases used before the elections have remained operational. Despite the fact that most of these incidents were reported to the law enforcement agencies, in very few cases have there been proper investigations and prosecutions, and the perpetrators continue to operate with virtual impunity.
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Intimidation of MDC leaders has also continued. Barely two weeks after the election the government instituted treason charges against Mr Tsvangirayi and two of his deputies. The charges are based on allegations that he sought to have Mr Mugabe murdered by a Canadian Public Relations consultancy firm. These allegations are based on the testimony of a questionable Israeli businessman and blurred video footage that purportedly shows Mr Tsvangirayi plotting the assassination with officers of the Canadian organisation. The video film appears to have been doctored and the Canadian organisation in question had previously and currently works for the Zimbabwe government .The government's attitude towards the MDC was summed up in a speech made by Mr Mugabe on 31 March 2002, when he stated that: "We will make them run. If they haven't run before we will make them run now."
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Attacks on the judicial independence
Since former Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay's comments at the opening of the legal year in 1991 35
, the Supreme Court has been on a collision course with the executive .The composition of Zimbabwe's Supreme Court, which had come into conflict with the government was forcibly changed to favour the government during the course of the year 2001. Pressure was exerted on judges to resign and the Chief Justice was made to retire early. New judges, who are presumed to be sympathetic to the government, have been appointed.
This change in the composition of the court is reflected in several of its judgments, in particular a judgment that upheld the legality of the government's land reform programme, which the previous court had held to be unconstitutional. A similar trend has also been witnessed in electoral cases.
President Mugabe illustrated the futility of a Supreme Court order when he overruled a final decision by the Court that the Harare Elections be held by early February .He also overruled a Supreme court order nullifying the General Laws (Election Amendments) Act of 2002 by re-enacting the whole statute using his delegated legislative powers in terms of section 158 of the Electoral Act. The Chief Justice properly complained that the government treated the Supreme Court like a kangaroo court.
In the High Court, several independent judges have resigned and have been replaced with appointees viewed as sympathetic to the government. Government ministers have launched a scathing attack on the Law Society of Zimbabwe and even went to the extent of detaining its leadership on nebulous changes of attempting to subvert constitutional government.
Attacks on press freedom
On 17th March 2002 Mugabe signed, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which requires journalists to be accredited with the Media Commission. This Act carries a penalty of up to 2 years and a fine of $ 300 000 for failure to register. It also states that foreign journalists may be accredited only for short periods at a prohibitive expense.
The Act also re-enacts many provisions of the Rhodesian Law and Order Maintenance Act such as the crime of "falsifying or fabricating information" or the "publication of falsehoods". At least 11 independent journalists and editors have been arrested on police suspicion that they had committed this crime. The stories, which have given, rise to their arrest range from one that alleged the Presidential election was rigged to one that purported to describe conditions in the police holding cells where the journalist concerned was kept during a previous arrest. Government journalists publishing falsehoods have not been arrested. Thereby giving rise to the belief that there is selective application of the law in violation of the constitution.
The Act also now requires newspapers and Internet providers to register with the commission, which has power to revoke their registration on relatively trivial grounds. Fines or imprisonment of the owners and seizure of their equipment can stop them from operating. The Commission also has power to investigate a journalist's sources, and to control and delay access to public records. This poses a serious additional threat to the independent press in Zimbabwe. Inconspicuously through a Schedule, the Act now also protects information relating to the most important public office, the Presidency, from disclosure.
Footnotes:
- The publicity given to the arrest in mid-May of one war veterans' leader on charges of extortion (he is alleged to have demanded that Asians should surrender their land) indicates how few such arrests there have been.
- UK Observer 26 May 2002.
- Justice Gubbay suggested in his address that any legislation to compulsorily expropriate land would be restrictively interpreted by the Supreme Court. President Mugabe suggested that if he was unhappy with the government he should resign .A nastier exchange occurred following a letter written by several senior judges to the president protesting against the conduct of the executive in the Mark Chavunduka et al case.
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