Sundaymail EditorJustice Loyce Matanda-Moyo
Prosecutor-General
IN an address on March 28, 2025, Prosecutor-General Justice Loyce Matanda-Moyo outlined her vision for 2025. She also reflected on the achievements and challenges faced in 2024. Here are key takea-ways from her address.
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The year 2024
Looking back, we embarked on 2024 with enthusiasm, determination and a bold theme: “Restoring public trust through just, effective and timely prosecution of cases”.
The theme was centred on the need to improve the public’s perception of the authority (National Prosecuting Authority of Zimbabwe — NPAZ) and restore public trust through just, efficient and timely prosecutions.
The public perceived the NPAZ office as corrupt, incompetent; did not serve the public interest, and exhibited poor work ethics.
We remain grateful for the feedback from our clients and stakeholders through various platforms.
It shows that some work has been done but we need to keep going.
We will continue striving for excellence and establishing the authority as the best criminal law firm in the country.
2025 legal year
The Chief Justice (Luke Malaba) opened the 2025 legal year on January 13, 2025.
As the NPAZ, we note the judicial theme of 2025, which resonated well with that of 2024.
The judicial theme for 2025 is: “Building public confidence in the Judiciary through multi-stakeholder participation”.
The theme serves to reinvigorate and redirect the Judiciary and all stakeholders in the justice delivery system to expend energies on making decisions and performing acts prescribed by the law, building public confidence not only in the Judiciary but in all justice system institutions.
In 2025, we will build upon the foundation of last year.
Our theme for the year is “Promoting prosecutorial excellence and efficacy”.
As public prosecutors, we will reaffirm our commitment to upholding justice, promoting prosecutorial excellence and enhancing the efficacy of our profession.
The theme resonates well with our vision of ensuring a just, safe and peaceful society by 2030.
It is our duty to uphold the law, protect the vulnerable and ultimately ensure that justice is served.
Where justice is served, society will be content and readily accept and respect the court’s rulings.
To achieve prosecutorial excellence and efficacy, we must prioritise professionalism, be innovative, be accountable and collaborate with other stakeholders.
Stakeholders in the criminal justice system
Our collaboration, communication and cooperation (3Cs) amongst stakeholders can never be overem-phasised and are key to achieving prosecutorial excellence.
The stakeholders in the criminal justice system are of equal importance.
None is more important than the other because each plays its assigned function to complement the other stakeholders.
We all cooperate and collaborate for the achievement of the common purpose of ensuring the proper functions of an effective and efficient justice delivery system.
If the system functions well, the public will have confidence in it.
I also take this opportunity to acknowledge the contribution of our various stakeholders, colleagues and partners.
We want to recognise the contributions especially made by the police in ensuring cooperation with the NPAZ by serving indictments upon accused persons, bringing accused persons to court for indictment and ensuring that the witnesses’ welfare is up to standard through proper investigations of matters.
Our acknowledgement also goes to the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission for enhanced docket quality during the 2024 legal year.
We expect to see more collaboration amongst stakeholders as we embark on the new year.
It would be remiss not to acknowledge the public whom we served throughout the year.
Effective case management
It is also essential that we focus on effective case management.
We must prioritise cases, manage workload effectively and ensure timely resolution of matters.
I am aware that last year we adopted these strategies, but let us improve on them and ensure that we adopt effective case management systems.
Where there is fairness and justice, the public will align with and abide by court decisions.
In the eyes of the public, justice is served where the guilty are punished, but when the courts start punishing the innocent, acquitting those who are guilty, the results will show as they will have a nega-tive impact on society. There will be high crime rates as those who commit offences will constantly be released into society and offered an opportunity to re-offend. Therefore, it is very important that we do justice as public prosecutors when executing our duties.
Quality decision-making is needed as we execute our duties. While we must quickly decide on our matters, we must never compromise on the quality of our decisions.
It is very important that, as public prosecutors, we make informed, evidence-based decisions that up-hold the law.
Professional development and training
I am happy that our public prosecutors have been trained in human rights.
The public prosecutors are now well-versed in the victim-centred approach.
The rights of the victims of crime must not be overlooked throughout criminal proceedings.
Notable is that Statutory Instrument 146/23 (Sentencing Guidelines) does have that notion of a victim-centred approach in arriving at an appropriate sentence.
As public prosecutors, we must prioritise the needs of victims by ensuring that they receive the sup-port they deserve from us.
We must engage in continuous professional development as leaders and continuously provide training for our public prosecutors such that within NPAZ, we develop a culture of continuous learning and de-velopment.
It is very important that we stay abreast of developments in the law, procedures and best internation-al practices.
We must continuously update our skills and knowledge.
Law reforms
NPAZ added its voice to the voices of other sector players and advocated the expeditious amendment of Section 70 of the Criminal Law [Codification and Reform] Act [Chapter 9:23] to ensure the timely ad-judication of cases involving sexual offences against minors.
This amendment facilitated the preservation of crucial evidence and pursuit of justice for victims.
Such inter-agency collaboration underscores the importance of a robust justice system capable of safeguarding the rights of vulnerable individuals.
Midlands circuit courts
Over the three-week circuit in Midlands, we successfully cleared 91 percent of the outstanding cases, achieving a 98 percent conviction rate.
This remarkable achievement demonstrates the effectiveness of our collaborative efforts and our commitment to delivering timely justice.
By addressing the backlog of murder cases in Midlands province, the Special High Court Circuit has proven to be a powerful tool for ensuring that justice is served.
We owe our success to strong collaboration with other justice sector partners, including the Zimbabwe Republic Police, the Law Society of Zimbabwe, the Judicial Service Commission, the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service and witnesses.
Employee welfare
NPAZ acquired motor vehicles and buses to improve the transport situation in the organisation.
The motor vehicles were allocated to district public prosecutors at various stations to carry out critical operational work.
About 650 laptops were purchased, of which 100 were delivered in 2024.
Engagements commenced with the Ministry of Local Government (and Public Works) to acquire 15 residential stands in Harare.
The authority also got a flat in Dzivaresekwa, which now houses one of our prosecutors.
The authority will continuously engage the relevant ministry so that members benefit from housing schemes countrywide.
Case clearance rate and statistics
The clearance rate for 2024 (67,97 percent) is slightly lower than that of 2023, which was 71,83 percent.
Mashonaland Central, Masvingo and Bulawayo reported that some courts have no magistrates due mainly to transfers and resignations.
The relevant institution was informed of the issue, and it is hoped that a higher clearance rate will be achieved in 2025.
Economic crimes
The unit receives and prosecutes economic crimes, which include fraud cases, corruption cases, crimi-nal abuse of office cases and any high-profile cases.
The following cases were handled and referred for prosecution in the regional and provincial courts.
Cases handled in 2024 were 322. Those completed were 223, with 99 pending.
Monitoring, evaluation and training unit
This unit was established in 2024 to monitor, inspect and evaluate prosecutors, identify performance gaps within prosecution and recommend training in areas where there are gaps. It receives complaints from the public and stakeholders.
A total of 272 complaints were handled, of which 252 were attended to and solved.
Only 20 cases were outstanding as of December 31, 2024.
- Litigation, sexual offences, gender-based violence (GBV), pre-diversion, children in conflict with the law unit: Dockets referred for set down were 653, dockets referred for trial were 321 and those re-ferred back to the police were 127.
About 58 were declined prosecution, while 147 were referred to lower courts.
- Asset forfeiture and international cooperation: This unit deals with forfeiture or recovery of money acquired through criminal enterprise. The unit also deals with extraditions and mutual legal assistance cases.
Total forfeiture orders, preservation orders and investigation orders by value were US$93,5 million against a target of US$35 million for 2024.
NPAZ received a total extradition and mutual legal assistance of 57 and executed 53, with four remain-ing.
GBV, corruption and drug cases
A total of 6 248 cases were received and 6 012 were completed, while 38 cases were withdrawn, with 198 pending.
The High Court set down nine cases, completed eight, with one pending, while the magistrates’ court had 92 setdowns for trial; 39 were completed and 49 are pending.
Pending setdown for corruption cases are those brought on Request for Remand Form 242 and dock-ets sometimes take longer to be brought to the NPA for prosecution.
The intervention proposed during the strategic workshop at the end of 2024 was that the NPAZ should demand that the accused be brought for initial remand on a full docket.
Only in very complex cases should the accused be brought on Form 242.
About 1 116 drug-related cases were received, 590 of which were prosecuted and 526 were pending.
The low clearance rate was due to non-availability of chemicals to test the drugs.
Intervention by the Prosecutor-General has now made it possible for the forensic reports to be done.
On average, the reports are being received within two to three weeks.
The first quarter of 2025 should significantly improve the clearance rate of these cases.
Integrated electronic case management system (IECMS)
NPAZ has frog-leaped to join other stakeholders in implementing the fourth phase of IECMS. Masho-naland Central province has full connectivity and the necessary hardware to successfully embark on the implementation any time soon.
The authority will be equipping all prosecutors in all the 10 provinces with the requisite tools of trade to implement the system.
Expectations from prosecutors
Prosecutors must realise that they control the direction and outcomes of all criminal cases through their actions.
In order to fulfil that mandate, prosecutors must be sound in criminal law and decision-making.
Prosecutors must prepare for court . . .
We must engage each other, thus working as a team . . .
Prosecutors must exhibit the highest standards of ethical behaviour, must be honest, must demon-strate sound judgement and must constantly train and improve skills.
They must ensure fairness, impartiality and respect for the rights of victims and the accused.
Prosecutors must be committed to public service. We are public servants here to serve and not to be served. It is, therefore, imperative that prosecutors must have a strong desire to serve; sometimes with little benefit to ourselves.
Our satisfaction must come from realising that we have achieved in maintaining public safety and de-terring future criminal behaviour.
We must maintain or possess sound judgement in decision-making.
As prosecutors, it is essential that we can make informed decisions, being aware of the potential con-sequences and hazards of bad decisions.
Our bad decisions can damage the future of citizens.
Imagine sending an innocent person to jail for 30 years.
Prosecutors must be effective communicators.
Communication is an essential or mandatory skill that we should all possess.
The job of a prosecutor involves communicating with investigating officers, witnesses, complainants, magistrates, judges, defence counsels, assessors and the public.
Some cases are lost due to miscommunication between prosecutors and clients.
Efficiently managing caseloads and being able to prioritise cases is crucial for effective prosecutions.
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