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Legal Monitor - Issue 40
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
April 12, 2010

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Zuze: Prior bungling revealed

Fresh evidence pertaining to misconduct by controversial Chipinge Magistrate Samuel Zuze has recently emerged. In a development that validates lawyers' and human rights organisations' criticism of Magistrate Zuze's dereliction of professional duty, the Attorney General (AG)'s Office has strongly rebuked Zuze for grossly misdirecting himself in a case in which he revoked a bail order granted to a farm manager whom he later imprisoned for more than two weeks. Magistrate Zuze revoked a free bail order which he had granted to Munyaradzi Vutete, a Chipinge farm manager, who was charged with contravening Section 3 of the Gazetted Land (Consequential Provisions) Act for failing to vacate a gazetted farm in May last year. The Magistrate had initially granted Vutete free bail last year and ordered him to reside at Lot (1) Gungunyana Farm in Chipinge and not to interfere with the new farmer who had seized the farm where Vutete was a farm manager.

But on 13 May 2009, while in the midst of Vutete's trial, Magistrate Zuze revoked the free bail which he had granted to the farm manager and remanded him in custody. Magistrate Zuze jailed Vutete for 15 days until he was granted bail by the High Court after he petitioned the superior court to review his case. Magistrate Zuze's misadventures are exposed in the State's response to a bail application which was filed by Vutete's lawyers in which the AG's law officer, Richard Chikosha consented to bail. In his response to Vutete's bail application Chikosha agreed that Zuze had misdirected himself by revoking bail and imprisoning Vutete. "Whilst in the midst of the trial the court a quo
(lower court which Magistrate Zuze presided over) revoked the bail conditions and remanded applicant (Vutete) in custody. This was a gross misdirection by the court a quo. The State never complained of the applicant (Vutete) breaching any of the bail conditions and there was no enquiry held prior to the revoking of bail.

Respondent (the State) humbly submits that the applicant's application has merit and be upheld and the respondent concedes that the applicant's bail be reinstated," read part of Chikosha's response agreeing with Vutete's bail application which he was granted by a High Court Judge to end 15 days of incarceration. Chikosha only proposed an alteration of Vutete's bail conditions such that the farm manager should relocate from Gungunyana Farm and must not visit the farm at all. Magistrate Zuze is no stranger to controversy. In 2009 he convicted and sentenced Hon. Mathias Mateu Mlambo and Hon Meki Makuyana, the two MDC Members of Parliament whose respective constituencies are in Chipinge. The two have since been suspended from Parliament by Austin Zvoma, the Clerk of Parliament pending the determination of their appeals in the High Court, although the suspension has also been challenged by Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights acting for the legislators.

In January, Magistrate Zuze blocked the enforcement of a High Court order that would have resulted in him losing access to a farm that he received under the controversial land reform programme. He convicted four Chipinge farmers - namely Algernon Taffs of Chirega Farm, Z.F Joubert of Stilfontein, Mike Odendaal of Hillcrest and Mike Jahne of Silverton Farm, for refusing to vacate their properties and sentenced them to a US$800 fine each and gave them 24 hours' notice to vacate their homes. In convicting the four farmers, Magistrate Zuze did not disclose that he was holding an offer letter issued in November 2009 for Jahne's Silverton Farm when the farmers appeared before him. So Magistrate Zuze had a direct interest in the case which, in normal circumstances, would have legally obliged him to recuse himself from considering the matter.

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