via 2015: A test for judicial accountability The Zimbabwean 14 January 2015
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) welcomes the speech delivered by the Honourable Chief Justice of Zimbabwe, Godfrey Chidyausiku, on Monday 12 January 2015 at the official opening of the 2015 Legal Year in Harare.
The Honourable Chief Justice brought attention to issues that continue to negatively affect the administration of justice in the country, among them lethargic performance by some judicial officers, and insufficient resources at institutional and individual levels within the judiciary.
ZLHR associates itself with the call by the Honourable Chief Justice to improve the conditions of service of all judicial officers, which, if addressed, will contribute in part to combatting corruption and improving justice delivery. When judicial officers are poorly remunerated and a judiciary is inadequately financed and understaffed, the institutional independence of the judiciary is grossly undermined and it is the general populace that suffers.
However, there is also critical need for a renewed culture of professionalism and dedication to ensuring justice delivery for all, equally, and without fear or favour, which requires sacrifice and integrity. Lack of resources can never be a justifiable excuse or rationalisation for corrupt and illegal practices, or failure to perform constitutional and legal obligations, whether one is a judicial officer, a legal practitioner, an advocate, or a public law officer or prosecutor. Here, it is imperative that the legal profession and judiciary lead by example.
The steps taken by the Honourable Chief Justice to publicly appraise the performance of judicial officers in all courts is a positive and groundbreaking first step in applying public scrutiny to the fulfillment of constitutional and legal obligations by public officers. As the Chief Justice himself stated, “Judicial authority is derived from the people of Zimbabwe, to whom [the judiciary] is accountable for [its] performance as judicial officers.”
ZLHR notes the positive work rate of a number of judges mentioned by the Honourable Chief Justice, and can confirm the noted improvement in the speed with which many cases are disposed of, and judgments delivered, in several of the country’s courts. Of course, there is still work to be done, and the issue of reserved judgments, the slow pace of other cases currently pending before the courts, and slow delivery of judgments by other judicial officers, all remain a concern and a focus for improvement in 2015.
It is ZLHR’s hope that, with the continued enhancement of the case management system in 2015, the scrutiny and oversight will be further refined – not only by the Chief Justice, but also other stakeholders and consumers of the justice delivery system, and will provide more – and more useful – information that can assist in further improving the efficiency, effectiveness and accountability of judicial officers in all courts. This would include reviewing not only the work rate of the judicial officers, but also the quality of judgments and the justice dispensed; the number of cases taken on appeal and decisions reversed; and stakeholder confidence and public confidence in the justice dispensed.
We cannot overlook the need to ensure that other actors in the justice delivery chain, namely the Zimbabwe Republic Police, the National Prosecuting Authority, and the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service, replicate the positive steps taken by the judiciary, through the Chief Justice and the Judicial Service Commission.
With the Chief Justice having noted, scrutinised and reflected on the causes of the backlogs and low disposal rates of cases in some courts, it is clear that there is need for a multi-stakeholder approach to address the current challenges facing various courts around the country. This is an imperative if efforts to improve justice delivery in the country are to be credible. It requires input and collaboration, commitment and accountability by, the police, the prosecuting authorities, the judiciary, the prisons, and the legal profession, both through the Law Society of Zimbabwe and law-based organisations providing legal aid and assistance to the majority of the public.
Failure to deal holistically with the identified challenges results in the populace failing to access justice and this inevitably breeds loss of confidence in the justice delivery system, a rise in impunity, and the threat of people taking the law into their own hands where they believe the justice system has failed to provide speedy and effective relief.
ZLHR is ready and willing to continue its work with the identified stakeholders in this regard in the 2015 legal year and beyond.
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