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Judge president says judiciary reduced to begging
ZimOnline
January 16, 2007

http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=740

HARARE - Zimbabwe Judge President Rita Makarau on Monday broke with tradition to openly criticise President Robert Mugabe's government for undermining the judiciary by starving it of resources and reducing it to "begging for its sustenance".

In an alarming admission that the country's worsening economic crisis - that has seen the government struggle for resources - had virtually crippled justice delivery, Makarau for example said the High Court last year failed to travel to Masvingo province to hear hundreds of criminal cases simply because there was no money.

The High Court, which Makarau heads, permanently sits in Harare and the second largest city of Bulawayo while it periodically visits the other major centres across the country to preside over cases.

"It is my view that the place and role of (the) judiciary in this country is under-appreciated," said Makarau in a speech to mark the opening of the first term of the High Court this year.

"It is wrong by nature to make the judiciary beg for its sustenance. It is wrong to make the judiciary beg for resources from central government. It is wrong to make the judiciary beg from any other source," Zimbabwe's first woman head of the High Court said.

Court libraries were barely functional, while judges and magistrates had to make do without adequate computers or basic stationery but more frightening, according to Makarau, was the way corruption was beginning to take root among judicial support staff chiefly because of the poor salaries they are paid.

She said: "Reports have reached my office . . . that support staff in the courts are engaging in corrupt practices. While these reports are alarming, one can understand without excusing such conduct. Salaries of support staff are not commensurate with their place in the administration of justice."

The Judge President said constant appeals to the Ministry of Justice that handles the budget for the judiciary had been fruitless with the ministry maintaining it did not have cash.

Contacted for comment Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said he was still on leave and busy at his farm and unable to discuss work-related matters. "I am on leave until February 8, 2007. Call me then I might be able to comment," said Chinamasa.

Zimbabwe has for the past seven years been gripped by a debilitating economic crisis, shown by the world's highest inflation rate of more than 1 000 percent, rocketing unemployment, shortages of food, hard cash and just about every basic survival commodity.

The economic meltdown, described by the World Bank as the worst in the world outside a war zone, has also seen Mugabe's government scrounging for cash to pay for day-to-day operations.

For example, state hospitals that are the source of health services for the majority of Zimbabweans are barely functioning because doctors and some nurses are on strike demanding more pay.

The government admits health workers deserve more money but says it does not have enough in its coffers to bankroll the 8 000 percent salary hike doctors are demanding to cushion themselves against the rampant inflation.

But Makarau criticised the way in which the well-heeled both in the government and the private sector are always able to find enough of the scarce hard cash to import groceries, including expensive cars from neighbouring countries or to send their children to schools in foreign countries while key national institutions such as the judiciary were crumbling because of lack of resources.

She said: "When shortages of certain grocery items manifest themselves in local supermarkets, we shop in neighbouring countries. We have managed to avoid what we perceived as shortcomings in the local education system by sending our children to schools and universities in South Africa, Australia, United States and the United Kingdom.

"When we need complex medical procedures and attention that the local hospitals cannot now provide, we fly mainly to South Africa but sometimes to the UK or the USA. Yet, when we have to sue for wrongs done to us, we cannot do so in Australia or South Africa and have to contend with the inadequately funded justice system in the country."

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