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This article participates on the following special index pages:
Index of articles on the mistreatment of the legal profession in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
lawyers face campaign of vilification: watchdog
Agence France-Presse (AFP)
June 11, 2007
Visit
the special index page on the mistreatment of the legal profession
in Zimbabwe
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070611/wl_africa_afp/zimbabwejusticerights
HARARE (AFP) - Lawyers
are being arrested, beaten and harassed as part of a systematic
campaign of vilification by Zimbabwe's government, the International
Commission of Jurists said Monday.
"There is a systematic
campaign to vilify lawyers in Zimbabwe," ICJ mission chief
Claire L'Heureux-Dube told reporters following a five-day visit
to the troubled southern African nation by the Geneva-based legal
rights group. "The mission is disturbed that the unjustifiable
harassment, detention and beating of lawyers has only increased
the tension between the Law Society and the government.
"Such treatment
is interfering with the proper functioning of the administration
of justice, the role of lawyers and their independence," she
told a briefing in neighbouring South Africa.
The team reported back
that two prominent defence lawyers, Alec Muchadehama and Andrew
Makoni, had been arrested and assaulted at the beginning of last
month.
The pair, who have often
represented members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC), were then held incommunicado, without medication and food,
denied access to their families and denied court bail, said L'Heureux-Dube,
a retired Canadian supreme court justice.
Their treatment was "clearly
an escalation in the harassment and intimidation of the legal profession
and other persons perceived to be unpopular with the government",
she said.
When some of the men's
colleagues tried to hold a peaceful protest against their treatment,
they were baton-charged and herded onto police trucks. The protesters,
including the president of the Law Society, were later dumped by
the trucks on the side of the road.
When the ICJ mission
met with the permanent secretary of the justice ministry, David
Mangota, to raise their concerns he had accused the lawyers of lying
in court affidavits on behalf of their clients.
"The permanent secretary
said he had not and would not investigate the matter," said
the ICJ team's report.
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