adminMidlands Bureau
THE government has allocated close to 60,000 hectares of land to the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs for the construction of 30 court houses in all the country’s provinces, Chief Magistrate, Mishrod Guvamombe has said.In an interview held after the swearing-in of three magistrates at the Gweru courts last Friday, Guvamombe said the process for the court house project has already started. He said the project was likely to be completed in two years time.
He said: “In order to improve access to justice, we realised one of the factors which we need to do is to put up the required infrastructure. It has not been easy for us as a country to do that due to limited funding but recently we got some cooperating partners who offered to assist us in constructing 30 court houses.
“The process has already started and the project is likely to take two years. This is a project covering all the provinces.They have already identified the sites and we have about 2,000 hectares for each court house and other supporting infrastructure.”
Guvamombe could not be drawn to reveal the cooperating partners saying it was too early to do so.
He said the construction of the courts was long overdue.
The Judiciary Service Commission recently introduces Saturday court sessions as part of measures to clear the backlog.
Sidumisile Mabena