Why are Zimbabwe’s lower courts tools for political persecution?

Tendai Ruben Mbofana

When justice must routinely be rescued by the higher courts from the clutches of the lower tiers, a legal system ceases to function as a shield for the innocent.

If you value my social justice advocacy and writing, please consider a financial contribution to keep it going. Contact me on WhatsApp: +263 715 667 700 or Email: mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com

Instead, it transforms into a blunt weapon for the politically powerful.

The recent High Court judgment throwing out the farcical state case against Zimbabwe Independent editor Faith Zaba is a vital victory for press freedom, but it is also a damning indictment.

Zaba spent nearly a year fighting baseless charges of “undermining the authority of the president” over a satirical Muckraker column.

While her final acquittal provides immense relief, the agonizing trajectory of her case exposes a deeply rotten core within our judicial architecture.

Her experience is not an isolated incident.

It follows an identical, highly predictable pattern that has become the standard operating procedure for dealing with dissent in Zimbabwe.

Journalists, human rights defenders, and opposition figures are routinely arrested on the flimsiest of pretexts.

They are dragged before the magistrates’ courts, where they are almost automatically denied bail and remanded in custody.

They are forced to endure grueling, expensive, and psychologically draining legal processes for months on end.

Then, after the damage has already been inflicted, a superior court eventually states the obvious: no crime was ever committed.

While these higher-court interventions are essential, they should not be celebrated blindly.

Instead, they force us to confront an uncomfortable question.

Why must citizens suffer unlawful detention and financial ruin at the lower levels before basic constitutional sanity is restored?

The answer to this crisis lies in the calculated strategy of “lawfare”—the deliberate misuse of legal systems and principles to intimidate, harass, and silence critics.

In these high-profile arrests, the state typically knows from the very beginning that the charges cannot survive the rigorous constitutional scrutiny of a superior judge.

Winning a conviction, however, was never the actual goal.

The process itself is the punishment.

By manipulating the criminal justice system, the state ensures that an independent voice is drained of financial resources through mounting legal fees.

The accused is isolated from their professional work and subjected to the severe trauma of maximum-security prison cells and endless court appearances.

When law enforcement agencies and state prosecutors continuously overstretch criminal statutes, they are engaged in political containment, not justice.

They weaponize everything from archaic insult laws to the modern traps of the Cyber and Data Protection Act to criminalize standard journalism and protected political speech.

This sends a chilling message to the entire nation, forcing a culture of self-censorship.

The state simply relies on the lower courts to do the heavy lifting of punishing the critic before a trial even concludes.

This persistent dynamic reveals a dangerous, structural fracture between our lower magistrates’ courts and the higher judiciary.

Unlike superior court judges, who enjoy a greater degree of constitutional insulation, magistrates are highly vulnerable to executive interference and political pressure.

Lacking robust security of tenure and independent financial protections, lower-court judicial officers too often operate under a cloud of political compliance.

Instead of acting as independent arbiters of the law, they function as an administrative conveyor belt for state-sponsored harassment.

This systemic vulnerability is eagerly exploited by a weaponized National Prosecuting Authority.

Prosecutors routinely demand endless trial postponements, request weeks to “verify” elementary facts, and oppose bail on the vaguest assertions of national security.

When magistrates continuously tolerate these bare-minimum, unproven state outlines, they become complicit in the violation of constitutional rights.

By the time a victim manages to access a superior remedy through a High Court judge in chambers, months or years have passed.

The constitutional victory comes far too late to undo the immediate destruction of the individual’s liberty and livelihood.

Rescuing the judiciary from this severe crisis of credibility requires aggressive institutional reforms rather than temporary reliefs.

First and foremost, the magistrates’ court system must be completely insulated from executive overreach.

Magistrates must be granted the same institutional independence, security of tenure, and transparent promotion tracks enjoyed by superior judges.

These structures must be managed strictly by an independent Judicial Service Commission, entirely free from political vetting and executive intimidation.

Furthermore, there must be a tangible, financial cost for malicious prosecution.

When a higher court determines that the state overstretched the law to launch a political crusade, the law should allow for personal punitive damages to be awarded against the individual prosecutors responsible.

The era of consequence-free state harassment must end.

​If a prosecutor knows that pursuing a malicious indictment could cost them their own wealth, the appetite for frivolous trials will vanish overnight.

Simultaneously, lower-court judicial officers whose decisions to deny bail or entertain groundless state delays are consistently overturned on basic constitutional errors must face rigid competence reviews.

Finally, parliament must aggressively repeal the sweeping, repressive legislative provisions that make this harassment possible in the first place.

Until the lower courts are completely reformed, our legal system remains broken.

The higher courts cannot continue acting as a permanent safety valve for state containment.

• Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. To directly receive his articles please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08