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ZLHR vindicated as Tomana admits bungling
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
February 01, 2010

Attorney General (AG) Johannes Tomana on Monday 1 February 2010 conceded that his law officers and prosecutors had at times misjudged when they unnecessarily invoked section 121 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act (CPEA) to effectively reverse the granting of bail to accused persons.

Prosecutors and law officers from the AG's Office have on numerous occasions abused a controversial provision of the CPEA by invoking section 121 to keep accused persons in custody despite them being granted bail by the courts. This practice has had the effect of keeping individuals in custody for a further seven days to allow the State time to appeal the granting of bail. In almost all cases the appeals were either never filed, or were dismissed by the superior courts.

Because of this practice Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) had, in recent months, protested that the section was being used selectively and unlawfully by the AG's office against human rights defenders and legitimate political activists in order to persecute these individuals, even where courts have found no evidence that they would pose a threat to the interests of justice, society or the State, if they were to be released on bail.

Tomana told the Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal Affairs, Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs, chaired by Masvingo Urban legislator Hon. Tongai Matutu, when he appeared before it today, that he could not rule out malice, corruption, misjudgment and human error on the part of his law officers in invoking section 121.

Tomana is the first and highest ranking State legal officer to admit the abuse of section 121 which ZLHR contends has been invoked on numerous occasions merely to punish or further harass human rights defenders and continue the incarceration of such individuals in appalling conditions of detention, and not because an appeal would have prospects of success.

Already prominent human rights lawyer and ZLHR member Alec Muchadehama is awaiting a determination from the Supreme Court on his application challenging the constitutionality of section 121 of the CPEA.

Evidence compiled by ZLHR makes it clear that, in the majority of the cases recorded, the State had not filed an appeal after the expiry of the statutory seven days. In the isolated cases in which an appeal was pursued, not one appeal filed by the AG's office has succeeded.

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) feels that there is an urgent need for intervention in order for such repressive and unconstitutional practices to be brought to an end and for accused persons to be afforded their basic rights and freedoms. The exposure of such practices in public hearings is the first step in this process, but requires that further corrective measures to be taken, together with a change of attitude on the part of the AG and his subordinates, including the Director of Public Prosecutions, if it is to have any real meaning for those who have fallen, or may fall, victim to such abuse.

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