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Judge 'fast-tracks' banning bid
27/01/2004 13:02 - (SA)
Harare - Zimbabwe's chief justice, Godfrey Chidyausiku, has "fast-tracked" an application by the state's media watchdog for the independent Daily News to be shut down.
The government-appointed Media and Information Commission is asking Chidyausiku to bar the Daily News until the courts hear a comprehensive appeal over the legality of official press controls, lawyers said on Tuesday.
Gugulethu Moyo, legal adviser to Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe which owns the Daily News, said Chidyausiku, widely seen as a government supporter, had decided to hear an "urgent application" from the Commission in his chambers on Tuesday.
The commission wants a ban until the court hears the commission's appeal against a high court ruling in October that dissolved the commission on the grounds that it was "biased" and "improperly constituted".
The high court ruling was a successful appeal against the Commission's banning in September of the Daily News, the country's only critical daily voice and the largest circulation daily newspaper. The high court ordered that the commission be reconstituted and then issue the Daily News with a licence to publish.
However, the government filed an appeal against the court orders and went on to ignore three more court rulings to lift the ban on the newspaper, sending heavily-armed police to occupy the newspaper's offices and its printing presses.
Only on Wednesday last week did police comply with a third court ruling that directly ordered them and the Media Commission not to interfere with the newspaper.
The commission immediately filed its latest application with the supreme court, while the information department in President Robert Mugabe's office filed another with the high court here.
It took the Commission's application four working days to be granted a hearing, Moyo said. "How many other matters have still not been heard by the supreme court, some of them that have been waiting for over two years?" asked Moyo.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change and civil rights organisations accuse the supreme court, dominated by pro-Mugabe judges, of dragging its feet in cases that could go against the government.
Chidyausiku's court has been sitting on appeals against MDC victories in parliamentary elections in 2000. It has also failed to hear critical constitutional cases, including appeals against the "Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act", the state's new press-gag laws, since shortly after they were passed in early 2002.
"Here you have a situation where closing a newspaper is a matter of such importance that the government can rush to the supreme court and get a hearing as a matter of urgency," Moyo said.
"I have never seen any case fast-tracked in the courts so quickly. It is incredible."
The government's application to the high court was due to be heard on Wednesday or Thursday, said Moyo.
"There is no need for the chief justice to hear this case in his court now. The supreme court is obliged to hear appeals or constitutional cases. This is neither. The supreme court should chuck it out if they want to do justice."
The Daily News has been a major thorn in Mugabe's side since it began publishing in March 1999, and has won over a million readers with its outspoken criticism of the regime.
The newspaper has been bombed twice, and had dozens of its staff, including editors, journalists and even vendors, arrested, tortured and harassed.
- SAPA
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