admin
after he wrote a letter to the Constitutional Court asking it to disregard the application filed by Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa seeking to extend poll dates from July 31 to August 14.
Minister Chinamasa made the application on behalf of the Government this week in the wake of the extraordinary Summit of Sadc heads of state and government that convened in Maputo, Mozambique, last weekend and tasked him to approach the Court to seek a two-week extension to accommodate any agreed reforms.
This followed representations made by the MDC formations which said more time was needed to accommodate reforms before elections.
Mr Tsvangirai’s actions, that followed his party’s announcement that it was drafting an application to the Constitutional Court entreating it to ignore the one filed by Minister Chinamasa on Tuesday, dovetail with MDC-T’s Election Litigation Strategy designed to flood the Constitutional Court with vexatious applications to prevent it from dealing with matters on time.
Fifteen lawyers drawn from the MDC-T and its allies in the NGO sector and legal fraternity met in the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights boardroom on June 3 and resolved to launch a frivolous crusade to embarrass the Judiciary pursuant to making it part of MDC-T’s reform agenda.
This is not the first time Mr Tsvangirai has sought to interfere with the Judiciary.
He stoked similar controversy after writing to High Court judge Tedius Karwi on February 24 2009 offering himself as surety in Roy Bennett’s bail application.
Bennett was facing treason charges and Mr Tsvangirai’s actions, which Justice Karwi described as “unprecedented”, drew the ire of State counsel Chris Mutangadura who equated them to executive interference with the Judiciary.
Despite getting his fingers rapped in 2009, Mr Tsvangirai was at it again yesterday, leaving the legal fraternity shell shocked.
Efforts to get comment from the Law Society of Zimbabwe were fruitless yesterday.
However, legal experts said it was amazing that the Prime Minister seemed oblivious to the fact that courts do not deal with “Auntie Rhoda” type of letters, but affidavits and sworn statements, among others.
Mr Terrence Hussein of Hussein and Ranchod Legal Practitioners said it was unprocedural for the PM to write such a letter to the Constitutional Court.
“I think the Prime Minister has been badly advised on that one. First of all, you do not write letters to the court, you file papers.
“You do not give directives to the courts, you make requests. It would be considered to be most inappropriate to write letters to the court, it is lack of knowledge or bad advice.”
Another Harare lawyer who preferred anonymity because his firm handles most of the MDC-T’s business, accused the Prime Minister of seeking to influence decisions of the courts.
“There is no room for such correspondence. The courts deal with sworn statements and not such letters that do not have any legal standing in court processes,” the lawyer said.
Political analyst and Zanu PF Politburo member Professor Jonathan Moyo said Mr Tsvangirai’s actions proved he was unfit to occupy the highest office in the land.
“The Prime Minister has proven himself to be the greatest threat to the rule of law in Zimbabwe. His attempt to influence the court is an insult not only to the court, but to the Constitution and especially to the concept of separation of powers which is the cornerstone of any constitutional democracy,” he said.
Prof Moyo also took a swipe at PM Tsvangirai’s legal team for failing to advise him correctly.
“It is clear he doesn’t have sound legal advice, he thinks everything is political and does not understand that the court proceeds on the basis of rules. The constitutional court is a rule bound institution; statements made in court are legal and are made under oath.
“You do not write letters to the constitutional court, you swear affidavits to the court. But for you to submit affidavits to the courts you need to respect the law and the truth and PM Tsvangirai respects neither.
“We would expect the lawyers to better advise their client even if it is the prime minister. In this case you can see a blatant disregard of rules by the lawyers,” Prof Moyo said.
He said the argument the MDC formations wanted to submit the application and respond to it at the same time.
“They want to write the application, put it in the name of the minister and respond to the application themselves. They want the minister to remove the application which he has submitted under oath and sign their application which is a complete misrepresentation of facts and force the minister to commit perjury,” he said.
He said the MDC formations wanted to hide to the court the background that led to the convening of the extraordinary Sadc Summit.
“They do not want the court to know they lobbied Sadc, they do not want the court to know they lobbied the facilitator, President Zuma and that they ganged up with three other parties, Zanu Ndonga, Zapu and Simba Makoni’s MKD.
“They want to hide the fact that they pretended to be making legal arguments at the Sadc Summit when they knew that Sadc is not a legal forum or court and that the Sadc Heads of State are neither lawyers not judges,” he said.
Prof Moyo said the MDC formations wanted to pretend that they attended the Summit and spoke as one when it was clear that there was no unity among the inclusive Government partners.
“They did not go as political parties; they did not go as inclusive Government to the Sadc Summit. When they came back they claimed to have humiliated the President now they want to pretend that they should go and approach the court as one,” Prof Moyo said.
“They went to Sadc as political parties with the support of the three other parties without Zanu-PF and not as inclusive Government. There was no speaking with one voice at Sadc. Now Tsvangirai writes to the court that they want to come as inclusive Government, the contradiction is glaring,” Prof Moyo said.
He said if they wanted to speak with one of voice they should have done that at the Sadc Summit adding they now have an opportunity as respondents to make whatever case they might have in the application made by Minister Chinamasa.
In his judgement in February 2009, Justice Karwi rapped PM Tsvangirai for putting himself as surety saying the move was “unprecedented”.
“We don’t want politicians to interfere with the work of the judiciary. I hope that they will take heed of that, because we don’t want a clash of the executive and the judiciary.”
Legal experts said in any other democracy what the PM Tsvangirai amounted to a serious Constitutional crisis and heads would have rolled.
Ironically, a few days earlier President Mugabe had been asked by the media over the Roy Bennett matter, but was quick distance himself saying “the Roy Bennett is a matter for the courts”.
Online Reporter