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AU
to hear ANZ case
MISA-Zimbabwe
October 21, 2004
The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights [ZHLR] has resolved to take
the issue pertaining to the closure of the Daily News and Daily
News on Sunday for preliminary hearing before the African Commission
on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR).
The matter will
be brought before the ACHPR during the African Union’s (AU) 36th
Session which opens in the Gambia on 23 November 2004.
The case follows
the Supreme Court judgment against Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe
(ANZ), publishers of the banned papers which ruled that the company
had approached the court with "dirty hands" in its bid
to challenge the constitutionality of the Access to Information
and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA).
The two newspapers
were closed following a Supreme Court ruling on September 12 2003
that the papers could not continue publishing without accreditation
from the Media and Information Commission, (MIC).
Chief Justice
Godfrey Chidyausiku said he could not delve into the merits of the
constitutional challenge because the company was operating illegally
as it was not registered with the MIC.
Professor Michelo
Hansungule of the Centre for Human Rights in the Faculty of Law
at the University of Pretoria, South Africa will argue the case
on the preliminary issues of admissibility.
Hansungule said
their arguments regarding admissibility had already been filed with
the Commission’s Secretariat.
This constitutes
the first stage under the procedure governing the operations of
the African Commission. After the Commission rules on the admissibility
it will call upon the complainants to make submissions on the merits
of the case.
The case was
taken to the African Commission after exhaustion of all domestic
remedies.
This was after
the Supreme Court refused to entertain a constitutional challenge
against AIPPA by Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe on the grounds
that ANZ had approached the court with "dirty hands" in
that it was operating outside the law.
Hansungule argues
that the Supreme Court judgment violated the principle of right
to be heard before an impartial court and the golden rule of equality
of treatment before the law.
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