Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights

• To strive to protect, promote, deepen and broaden the human rights provisions in the Constitution of Zimbabwe.
• To strive for the implementation and protection in Zimbabwe of international human rights norms as contained in important sub-regional and international human rights instruments.
• To strive for the adoption of a Southern African Development Community (SADC) Charter on Human Rights and to develop and/or strengthen the implementing mechanisms.
• To endeavor to find common ground with and work alongside other Zimbabwean organizations, activists, and persons who share a broadly similar concern for and interest in human rights.
• To liaise and work with other human rights groups wherever situated but particularly in Southern Africa, and especially those closely linked to the legal profession.
• To do all other things necessary to promote and protect human rights, the rule of law and separation of powers in Zimbabwe and the region.

Units

Public Interest Litigation

The oldest and most established of ZLHR’s units, this unit carries out various types of litigation in order to contribute to civil, political, economic and social justice and democratic reform in Zimbabwe. Project lawyers work on constitutional litigation (challenging the constitutionality of various laws and state policies and practices and seeking to expand the Bill of Rights of the current Constitution); anti-impunity litigation (bringing civil claims for damages against named perpetrators in their official and personal capacities to reduce impunity and increase accountability of state and non-state actors for human rights violations against HRDs; Public interest (strategic/impact) litigation (to expose potential perpetrators, or prevent or expose intended unlawful conduct by state and non-state actors); and socio-economic rights litigation (to promote social and economic justice and further development efforts in Zimbabwe).

• Goal: To enhance access to Civil, Social and Economic Justice through litigation, human rights awareness, and education

Constitutional Litigation

ZLHR litigates based on the Constitution of Zimbabwe, as the supreme law of the land to assert rights and liberties guaranteed in the declaration of rights. The Constitution protects various civil and political rights and socio-economic rights. Notwithstanding such constitutional protections, Zimbabweans and in particular those falling within the class of human rights defenders continue to be persecuted through various subsidiary legislation, policies and administrative practices. ZLHR litigates before the Constitutional Court to assert enshrined rights and challenges conduct, practices, customs and laws that are inconsistent with the Constitution. ZLHR also relies on the new provisions entrenching economic, social and cultural rights to protect citizens’ rights to these development-oriented rights.

Public Interest (Strategic Impact) litigation

ZLHR takes up cases that are meant to benefit public good and advance the protection and enjoyment of human rights at a broader level. The unit engages in strategic human rights litigation that has an impact on the larger community and benefits more people beyond the primary litigant in a specific case. Some of the key issues targeted by the unit include reform of bad and repressive laws, influencing government economic and social policy, promoting social equality, fostering public accountability, promoting access to justice and generally promoting and protecting the rule of law and the enjoyment of human rights by all citizens.

Anti-impunity

Over the years of litigating on behalf of human rights defenders, ZLHR has realized that a number of state and non-state actors often violate human rights of others under the guise of acting within the realm of the law or purportedly under some state authority. Cases of police brutality, heavy-handedness by security agents and other quasi-state actors continue to be recorded. To deter and discourage such violations, ZLHR adopts, as one of its strategies, a policy of bringing anti-impunity civil proceedings against perpetrators wherever possible. Claims for damages are usually filed against the defendants to deter acts of human rights violations.

Regional and International Litigation

There are instances in which local (domestic) remedies fail to provide redress to victims/survivors of human rights violations, or where they are simply unavailable. In this case, where local remedies have been exhausted or do not exist, ZLHR files complaints with regional and international tribunals and other human rights bodies seeking further relief for violations by the state of its regional and international obligations. ZLHR has led the way in filing successful communications with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Mobile Legal Clinics

The lack of an accessible and efficient justice system makes it difficult for the people especially in the rural areas of Zimbabwe to access justice on time and in the prolonged process makes it very expensive also. As part of ZLHR’s deliberate strategy to ensure access to justice for all, ZLHR conducts mobile legal clinics in low-income communities in peri-urban and rural areas. The aim of mobile legal clinics is to avail justice right at the door-step of those who need it most but do not ordinarily have access to it. Mobile legal clinics are structured in such a way that they provide human rights literacy, free legal aid and legal counselling for the poor and the most marginalised populations and where appropriate, ZLHR takes up cases for litigation requiring human rights litigation

Unit Outputs

• Constitutional Litigation to enforce civil and political rights and economic and social rights
• Anti-impunity litigation
• Public Interest Litigation
• Regional and International Litigation
• Two-way pathway referral mechanisms with the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission

Mobile Legal Clinics

The lack of an accessible and efficient justice system makes it difficult for the people especially in the rural areas of Zimbabwe to access justice on time and in the prolonged process makes it very expensive also. As part of ZLHR’s deliberate strategy to ensure access to justice for all, ZLHR conducts mobile legal clinics in low-income communities in peri-urban and rural areas. The aim of mobile legal clinics is to avail justice right at the door-step of those who need it most but do not ordinarily have access to it. Mobile legal clinics are structured in such a way that they provide human rights literacy, free legal aid and legal counselling for the poor and the most marginalised populations and where appropriate, ZLHR takes up cases for litigation requiring human rights litigation.

Target groups

Women, men, youth and marginalised individuals and groups who are HRDs; trade unionists; constitutional rights activists; socio-economic justice activists; communities and individuals subject to forced evictions, internal displacement, other emergencies; media practitioners; environmental rights activists; artists, bloggers, actors; innocent bystanders who are caught up with HRDs; Local policy-makers; other community and civic leaders; regional and continental bodies – SADC, African Union; international rights bodies and the United Nations.

Events

Devolution

On devolution, Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA), Community Water Alliance (CWA) and Member of Parliament Rusty Markham went to court in 2023, and in October, the High Court ordered that:

Any or all of the respondents shall, within a period of six (6) months, that is to say, by 31 March 2021 submit a bill or Bills for gazetting by the Parliament of Zimbabwe which Bill or Bills will give effect to an Act of Parliament governing the devolution of powers as contemplated in Chapter 14 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.

The Minister of Local Government Rural and Urban Development was the first respondent with the Minister of Justice Legal and Financial Affairs being the second respondent the Minister of Finance and Economic Development was the third respondent.
The matter was presided over by Justice Mushore. Residents were represented by Mr Tendai Biti, a member of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. ^[1]

Pomona Dump deal

Council resolves to cancel deal, August 2022

In August 2022, Harare City Council resolved to cancel the Pomona waste management deal. They also disregarded Local Government minister July Moyo’s order that council pay a US$1,5 million bill due to Geogenix BV for services rendered in May and June at the Pomona waste management energy plant. Mayor Jacob Mafume confirmed that the local authority had cancelled the Pomona deal, saying Moyo must go to court if he was unhappy.

A week before, Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) filed an urgent High Court application seeking an order to set aside a resolution to use the city’s devolution funds to pay Georgenix. CHRA was represented by Archford Rutanhira and Evans Moyo of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR). ^[2]

Obey Shava assault 2023

On Wednesday, 5 July 2023, Obey Shava, was attacked in Belvedere, Harare. He was assaulted, his legs broken, and left, by at least four unknown assailants, driving in a green Mercedes Benz sedan and a Toyota GD6. His cell phone was stolen. It is reported the incident took place outside Selborne Routledge Primary School shortly after 1900.

According to Advocate Thabani Mpofu, Shava received a call from a man claiming to have an urgent legal matter and he had agreed to meet the individual in the Belvedere area, where he intended to drop off a lawyer colleague. ^[3]

Shava is one of the lawyers under the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights who represented CCC activists Joanna Mamombe, Cecelia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova in court.

The Law Society of Zimbabwe has condemned the attack, and is also concerned that violence against legal practitioners has continued to increase recently. Months ago, Mr. Kudzayi Kadzere, was assaulted by the police while rendering services as a legal practitioner to his clients. In another case, Mrs. Fadzai Traquino, the Director of Women and Law Southern Africa Research Trust (WLSA), was subjected to cyberbullying by a disgruntled litigant resulting from her representation of the litigant’s estranged wife in a custody dispute. The Law Society of Zimbabwe is appalled by the increase in attacks and the use of violence against legal practitioners because these acts directly undermine the Rule of Law in Zimbabwe. Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; invalid names, e.g. too many