Major changes at top court

Fidelis Munyoro Chief Court Reporter
The Constitutional Court is working on reforms to stop litigants with “ulterior” agendas from choking the court with frivolous applications to ensure that deserving cases are dealt with timeously, Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku has said.
In his keynote address at yesterday’s official opening of the 2014 legal year, Chief Justice Chidyausiku said the Law Society of Zimbabwe and the offices of the Attorney-General and Prosecutor-General would be consulted on the proposed reforms.

“The main aim of the reform is to stop litigants from approaching the court for ulterior motives, with no intention whatsoever of pursuing the matter to finality,” said Chief Justice Chidyausiku.

“The reforms will ensure that all approaches to the Constitutional Court are genuine requests to have constitutional injustice redressed and Constitution respected,” he said.

The Chief Justice said the registrar was working on a raft of measures that would ensure all constitutional applications are dealt with expeditiously.

The Constitutional Court came into existence on May 22 last year. It has an establishment of nine judges, all drawn from the Supreme  Court.
During the year under review, 81 cases were filed at the highest court in the land with 50 of them coming between June and September 2013, the period shortly before and immediately after the landmark July 31 harmonised elections.

Justice Chidyausiku noted that 2013 gave birth to the new Constitution but the provisions of the home-grown supreme law were to be fully implemented.

“The harmonisation of other pieces of legislation with the Constitution and implantation of these laws may spawn little or no litigation at all or it may have the reverse effect. Only time will tell,” he said.

Chief Justice Chidyausiku said the workload of the Constitutional Court was likely to fall as the year progressed
“2013 was an election year and there was quite a spate of election-related litigation in the Constitutional Court which will naturally not be repeated in 2014 and in subsequent non-election years.

“The workload may thus drop down to close or to below the disposal rate … I accordingly reserve my judgment on the performance of the Constitutional Court,” he said.

Chief Justice Chidyausiku was pleased with the performance of the Supreme and Magistrates’ courts during the year under review.
With a clearance rate of 78 percent, the Chief Justice was confident that with right interventions, effective justice delivery was not a pipe dream.

“This in my view is what the justice delivery system should be able to do at all level. Justice should not be inordinately delayed at any level,” said Chief Justice Chidyausiku.

He said the performance of the Supreme Court caught some lawyers flat-footed and they started alleging that the court was breaching its own rules by setting down matters “too quickly”.

Chief Justice Chidyausiku commended magistrates for performance that exceeded expectations after they cleared the backlog that had become common for years.

“What makes this achievement commendable is that it was achieved against a backdrop of reduced manning levels and unimproved conditions of service for our magistrates,” he said.

The magistracy, like other departments in the Judicial Service Commission, have been affected Treasury’s imposition of a recruitment freeze over the past three years.

Chief Justice Chidyausiku expressed concern over the performance of the High and Labour courts. The two sit on huge backlogs.
“Like the High Court, the performance of the Labour Court is a cause for concern to me as the head of the judiciary and efforts will be made in 2014 to find solutions on how to bring down the backlogs in these two courts.”

Chief Justice Chidyausiku said he was working on the matter with Judge President Justice George Chiweshe.
The opening of the 2014 legal year under the theme “Effective Service Delivery” was attended by Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa; Secretary in the Ministry Mrs Virgina Mabhiza; Prosecutor-General Mr Johannes Tomana; senior Government officials; members of the legal fraternity and diplomats, among other dignitaries.