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Judgment exposes Media and Information Commission
Nyasha Nyakunu, MISA-Zimbabwe
Extracted from Monthly Alerts Digest- August 2005
September 06, 2005

The acquittal of Daily News journalist Kelvin Jakachira on charges of practicing journalism without accreditation assisted in illuminating and bringing to the fore the professional conduct of the Media and Information Commission (MIC).

Viewed differently, it was the MIC, and not Jakachira, which was on trial as to whether the Commission can be trusted with the fair and impartial adjudication of matters pertaining to the media.

If that had been the case, the MIC would have been found guilty all the way and back.

In her judgment delivered on 31 August 2005, Harare magistrate Prisca Chigumba, described the evidence led by the State’s sole witness, MIC executive chairman Dr Tafataona Mahoso, as vague and confusing.

Chigumba said it was common cause that Jakachira did submit his application in time and had thus complied with the application procedures as stipulated under AIPPA.

According to Section 82 of AIPPA one is deemed to have applied for registration upon lodging one’s application with the MIC and is entitled to continue practicing pending determination from the Commission.

The magistrate said the State through Mahoso, had led unreliable evidence as to whether he had received Jakachira’s application, and whether a determination had been made and communicated to the accused.

This turn of events should be critically examined against the State’s historical animosity towards the Daily News and its journalists who have variously been referred to as agents of imperialism bent on reversing Zimbabwe’s gains as a sovereign nation.

Given that background vis-à-vis revelations made in court during the trial, the issue that immediately comes to play is whether Mahoso’s dismal performance in court is the result of mere incompetence arising from failure to read the law or just wilful vindictiveness.

Whatever the pros and cons taking into account Mahoso’s academic credentials, the argument by MISA-Zimbabwe together with other progressive forces, that the MIC as personified by Mahoso, cannot be trusted with the fair and impartial adjudication of matters pertaining to the media, becomes much more persuasive.

It has been argued that the quid pro quo of members of the Commission being appointed by the Minister of Information is that they serve at the discretion of the Minister and the Executive.

It is also significant to note that the former Minister of Information and Publicity in the President’s Office Professor Jonathan Moyo is infamously credited with crafting AIPPA from which the MIC derives its statutory powers.

Ironically, Moyo who now masquerades as one of the leading beacons of the pro-democracy movement following his ouster from the ruling Zanu PF and government, still defends AIPPA as one of the best things to have happened to Zimbabwean journalism since independence in 1980.

While the acquittal of Jakachira strengthens the case for the repeal of AIPPA and the establishment of an independent self-regulatory body, it also exposed the hitherto undisclosed intricate links between the Executive and the MIC of which Moyo was obviously privy to during his turbulent tenure at the helm of the Information ministry.

It was disclosed during evidence led in court that the MIC, which is supposed to enjoy some kind of autonomy, does not even have its own private postal box but relies on the President’s Office for its mail delivery service.

Mahoso was non-committal if not evasive as to whether he had acknowledged receipt of Jakachira’s application, let alone considered it as an individual application as required.

His evidence was that he had rejected wholesale the applications filed by the ANZ journalists because the publishing company was not registered with the MIC as required under AIPPA.

Pressed by defence lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, as to when he had received the application, Mahoso was stuck for an answer giving credence to the possibility that the MIC’s mail is only delivered or forwarded to them at the pleasure and generosity of the President’s Office.

Without evidence to the contrary, it therefore becomes difficult to dismiss off-hand concerns that with that kind of marriage in place, the MIC is by extrapolation simply an extension of the Ministry of Information.

Put simply, it is the Ministry which decides which company and journalists should be registered and licensed to conduct the business of information dissemination.

The statutory closures of the Daily News, Daily News on Sunday, Weekly Times and The Tribune, smacks of intolerance and lack of appreciation of the vital role played by a free, independent and pluralistic media in the democratisation process as envisaged in the 1991 Windhoek Declaration.

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