President Emmerson Mnangagwa recently appointed Constitutional Court (ConCourt) judges leaving out Justice Happias Zhou leaving many asking for reasons behind the move.
Zhou was snubbed despite coming third out of 12 shortlisted candidates in last year’s interviews. Below are some of the probable reasons why Mnangagwa snubbed Zhou.
- Zhou has had close links with the original opposition MDC then under its founding leader, the late Morgan Tsvangirai. He was appointed judge in 2012 by the late former president Robert Mugabe in consultation with Tsvangirai as Prime minister during the Government of National Unity which lasted from 2009 to 2013.
- Recently, Zhou resisted Mnangagwa’s bid to extend former Chief Justice Luke Malaba’s term of office.
- Zhou has in the past delivered many troubling judgements which government did not like.
- After the June 2000 parliamentary elections, which the MDC narrowly lost to Zanu PF, Zhou represented in court Crispa Musoni, an opposition candidate for Gutu North challenging the late vice-president Simon Muzenda, the Zanu PF candidate. He withdrew his petition in the High Court without giving reasons.
- He also alleged that war veterans and Zanu PF supporters had intimidated and attacked his supporters in the run-up to the election. Muzenda had polled 14 867 votes against Musoni’s 8 179 votes.
- Zhou in 2018 scrapped Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube’s Statutory Instrument (SI) 205 of 2018, which enabled the government to levy 2% on electronic money transactions above ZW$10.
- Last year Zhou set aside Harare magistrate Ngoni Nduna’s ruling which barred prominent lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa from representing award-winning journalist Hopewell Chin’ono. Zhou further disqualified Nduna from presiding over Chino’no’s criminal trial and ordered that a new magistrate presides over the case.
- Zhou also barred any persons, including the police and home affairs, from preventing Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association leader Dr Peter Magombeyi, from leaving the country for the purpose of seeking medical treatment.
- At one time Zhou released 57 political activists who participated in demonstrations in 2016.
- Also last year Zhou ruled that the Conversion of USD balance into local currency, a result of Exchange Control R120/2018 directive issued by RBZ on 4 October 2018, was a violation of property rights, the judge ruled.
- In 2002, Zhou represented Tsvangirai after the disputed presidential election against Mugabe.
- Further, Zhou also delivered a judgement that co-habiting for decades without any payment of lobola does not up-grade a relationship to a legitimate marriage for purposes of inheritance.
It is believed that the government last year blocked Zhou in the running to become one of seven members of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea when his nomination was withdrawn without his knowledge in retaliation to his judgments.
More: Pindula News; TheNewsHawks
