In this wikipedia article about one of the VPs of Zimbabwe, it says the SC of Zimbabwe has ruled that the house she lives in was illegally requisitioned, and it says that, by virtue of “many legal battles,” someone was able to get a license to put up a cell network in Zimbabwe despite her efforts to stop him in favor of her own husband’s company.
The requisitioned house remains requisistioned, so the court’s decision seems to have had no teeth. But its (or anyway, the judiciary’s) decision in the cell phone case was apparently complied with.
My question is, what is the status of the SC in Zimbabwe? Does it make a habit of ruling aginst the government, or were these exceptional cases? If it does rule against the government with some frequency, how does it get away with this? The idea that a government body could make rulings–much less, in some cases, even see these rulings enforced–against Mugabe and his friends is not in keeping with the picture I have of how things are in Zimbabwe. But then, I don’t claim my picture of Zimbabwe is well developed at all, so I’d like to learn more.
-FrL-
It seems as if the court isn’t entirely under Mugabe’s control. A short google search for “Supreme Court of Zimbabwe” yields several newsstories about Zimbabweans appealing to the Supreme Court against acts of the governments. Agreed, this doesn’t mean these appeals are going to be successful (I haven’t found an official site of the court itself with publications of judgements), but the fact that they do appeal seems to show that these actions are not entirely moot.
I assume the situation is similar to the one in Pakistan under Musharraf’s military rule: There’s a strong, non-democratic autocrat heading the government, but this dictator cannot totally ignore the decisions of the judiciary because he has to cope with massive domestic and foreign opposition. If the court were to, say, impeach Mugabe, he might ignore it, but as long as the court’s decisions don’t affect the fundamentals of his rule, Mugabe might choose to comply to appease tensions. In such a delicate “balance of power,” courts can uphold a certain degree of rule of law even in a dictatorship.
The conclusion of a recent investigation of an international group of lawyers is that the legal system in Zimbabwe has been signficantly perverted and the non-corrupt have largely been driven out. However some courageous individuals remain.
See here: http://austbar.asn.au/dmdocuments/The_State_of_Justice_in_Zimbabwe_-Final_Report_03_12_04.pdf