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Zim-born citizens inalienable
From News24 (SA)
May 10, 2002

Harare - A High Court judge ruled on Friday that the government cannot strip citizenship from people born in Zimbabwe, and ordered the state to renew the passport of rights activist Judith Todd. "According to the papers before me, I find that Judith Todd is a citizen of Zimbabwe. I order the registrar general to renew the applicant's passport within 14 days" of her asking for a new one, Justice Sandra Mungwira said. The judge castigated registrar general Tobaiwa Mudede as having "arrogantly and unashamedly" carried out duties that belong to the police and attorney-general. "The attitude of the registrar-general is that he has taken it upon himself to grant citizenship under the Citizenship of Zimbabwe Act, which is the attorney-general's and police's job," Mungwira said. Under the citizenship act, a person born in Zimbabwe becomes a citizen by birth and "that right cannot be renounced", Mungwira said.

In March 2001, government passed a law that required anyone wishing to retain Zimbabwean citizenship to renounce any right to foreign citizenship - even if they had never held a foreign passport. The law mainly targeted an estimated 30 000 white Zimbabweans who were entitled to a foreign passport, and also tens of thousands of black workers whose parents or grandparents had immigrated from neighbouring nations. Government critics had feared the law would bar people with foreign-sounding surnames, as well as the small white minority from voting because they had not renounced their entitlement to foreign citizenship. The legislation was viewed as part of a wide-ranging strategy to ensure President Robert Mugabe's re-election in March. Todd is a rights activist who supported Zimbabwe's liberation struggle but who now opposes Mugabe, accusing his government of widespread human rights abuses. Both Todd's parents were born in New Zealand, but she was born in Zimbabwe, when it was still the British colony of Rhodesia. Her father, Garfield Todd, is a former prime minister of Rhodesia. She has never sought a New Zealand passport.

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