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Selective interpretation of the law
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2004-03
Monday January 19th - Sunday January 25th 2004

The continued selective interpretation of laws by government worsened by the biased reporting of the same, especially by the media it controls, threatens to severely compromise the effective delivery of justice in the country. A recent example of this happened during the week when ZANU PF MPs breached Parliamentary procedures to bulldoze a second reading of the Land Acquisition Amendment Bill despite an adverse report by the Parliamentary Legal Committee (PLC) that the proposed law was unconstitutional.

The controversial amendment, which would make it easier for government to seize more land, mainly seeks to make preliminary notices in the government Gazette as constituting service of notice in writing upon the owners of the land that government wants to acquire as compared to the 30-day written notice that presently pertains.

While both sections of the Press reported on the event, especially the flare-up between MDC and ZANU PF MPs during consideration of the adverse report, none of the newspapers unequivocally pointed out what implications the ZANU PF MPs' disregard for parliamentary procedures meant to the rule of law. Neither did they reconcile Parliament's role - to make laws that do not infringe the Constitution and Bill of Rights - with this latest assault on landowners' liberties.

ZBC was even more unprofessional because it failed to fully expose the circumstances leading to the Bill going for its second reading. For instance, ZTV (22/01, 7am) merely quoted the leader of the House, Patrick Chinamasa as having said, "the land reform programme is a political exercise that cannot be resolved through the courts" without analyzing the underlying implications of this statement. This alarming declaration clearly exposes government's disrespect for the law and the judicial process on matters that have a bearing on its political survival. The Herald (22/1) also carried Chinamasa's comments and tried to blame the "disorderly conduct" of the MDC MPs for the disturbances while it remained silent on the racial attacks against MDC MP David Coltart by Chinamasa. This came after Coltart alleged that some 38 ZANU PF MPs owned farms and should not be allowed to debate the Bill because under parliamentary procedures, members with financial interests in matters under debate must declare them and recuse themselves.

Such double standards were unearthed by SW Radio Africa (22/01), The Tribune (23/1) and The Zimbabwe Independent (23/1). The Tribune, for example, also reported how ZANU PF chief whip Joram Gumbo "crossed the floor to confront Coltart" and "had to be dragged away by the sergeant-at-arms, Nicholas Marufu". In the same vein, The Zimbabwe Independent reported that ruling party MPs had accidentally "voted in favour of the (committee's) adverse report, which said the Bill breached constitutional provisions on property, but were asked to vote again when chairman of committees Lazarus Dokora realized the mistake."

The government-controlled media's selective reporting of issues also manifested itself in the way they covered the legal battle between the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) and Information Minister Jonathan Moyo in conjunction with the Media Information Commission (MIC). The Herald, Chronicle (23/1) and ZBC (23/01, 7am), for example, merely promoted Moyo's arguments in their stories by endorsing them as the law in themselves without verifying them independently. Even arguments in The Herald (23/01) and The Sunday News (25/01) that the court rulings allowing the ANZ to resume publishing should be shelved since MIC had appealed against that in the Supreme Court were simplistic as they lacked independent corroboration on regulations governing appeals. In fact, none of the media probed whether MIC, ruled as "improperly constituted" by the Administrative Court, has any legal or moral right to take the ANZ to court. In other words how valid are its appeals?

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