The outcry outcry over the quality of new high court judges to be sworn in Monday 17 June continues. Journalist Hopewell Chin’ono, in a post on X described the appointment of these judges as the burying of Zimbabwe’s judiciary.
In a notice released by the government days go, Mnangagwa said he had appointed former magistrates Faith Mushure and Ngoni Nduna and lawyers Regis Demure, Philipa Phillips, Gibson Mandaza, Joel Mambara, Naison Chivhayo, Vivian Ndlovu, Sijabuliso Siziba and Mpokiseng Dube as judges of the High Court.
Chin’ono says the president selected judges who would likely rule in his favour, and not based on their qualification for the job.
Said Chin’ono:
Dear Fellow Africans,
When we say that the Zimbabwean judiciary has collapsed through capture, incompetence, and corruption, this is what we mean.
These men and women you see in this video clip publicly failed their interviews. Some are even crooks who don’t repay debts, yet President Mnangagwa is appointing them as judges tomorrow.
These are the men and women who will be part of Zimbabwe’s high court.
They know they are not qualified, the president knows they are not qualified, but they got the job because they have done things for the regime!
One of them, Ngoni Nduna, who until these interviews was a magistrate, outraged the international legal community when he removed my lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa from representing me in 2020 after I had been arrested on trumped-up charges.
Even the Chinese bar condemned his actions. He doesn’t pay his debts, yet our president ignored all that. From tomorrow, he will be a judge!
This is the quality of judiciary that we will have and have had in Zimbabwe.
Some of them like Nduna were used at the magistrates court to illegally deny opposition figures, journalists and activists bail.
When a person is appointed a judge when they are unqualified, they will seek to return that favour by making illegal rulings which go against the constitution.
Under the so called Second Republic the judiciary has been buried!Welcome to my Zimbabwe!!!