Another Zim judge quits

2002-01-03 17:57

Angus Shaw

BHarare - A senior judge quit the bench in Zimbabwe court officials said on Thursday, part of a wave of resignations by independent minded members of the judiciary.

In a country that is increasingly considered to be lawless, the judiciary has been under growing pressure by the government to issue rulings in its favour.

High Court Judge David Bartlett, 49, whose resignation will be effective from the end of March, was appointed to the bench in 1992. He gave no reasons for his decision to resign.

Four of the country's 30 senior judges have quit in the last year and a fifth recently retired. All were considered independent thinking judges who faced mounting pressure from the government and ruling party militants.

Former Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay was forced to resign and take early retirement last July after the government warned him and other judges they would not be protected from ruling party militants, who stormed the Supreme Court in December 2000, vowing to drive some judges from office and shouting: "Kill the judges."

None of the militants were prosecuted.

Declared land grab illegal

The Supreme Court under Gubbay had declared the violent government sanctioned the confiscation of white-owned farms illegal.

The court was accused by militants of bias in favour of white landowners.

Bartlett recently summoned parliamentary speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa of the ruling party to explain why he arranged for the release of a convicted bank robber who was reportedly related to one of his friends.

Mnangagwa refused to appear in court.

In other high profile cases, Bartlett ordered the inquiry that led to the 1999 conviction and imprisonment of former ceremonial president Canaan Banana on sexual assault charges.

Banana was jailed for abusing his power by raping and sexually assaulting several men on his presidential staff while in office from 1980 to 1987.

The departure of Bartlett, the fourth white judge to quit in the past two years, leaves two white judges in the nation's High Court.

Several whites and scores of black magistrates preside in Zimbabwe's lower courts.

The state-run Herald newspaper described Bartlett's resignation as, "a sign white judges were leaving the bench after realising they were losing grip on the judiciary".

Last year, the government expanded the Supreme Court bench from five to eight judges, in an apparent bid to pack the highest court in the country with sympathetic judges.

Gubbay's successor, Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, has been accused of openly supporting ruling party policies.

The ruling party is scheduled to pass sweeping media controls and public order laws later this month to stifle criticism ahead of presidential elections in March that threaten President Robert Mugabe's 21-year hold on power. - Sapa-AP

- SAPA