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Chief Justice Chidyausiku

Harare Bureau
THE government will restore monthly skills retention allowances for critical staff in various ministries and departments after a strong rebuke by the Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku yesterday. Retention allowances of between US$150 and US$400 for critical staff – among them magistrates, law officers, prosecutors and other legal officers – were scrapped last month.

In an interview after the official opening of the 2014 legal year yesterday, Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa said he was going to make a proposal to Treasury to have the incentives restored.

Minister Mnangagwa said it was not the government’s intention to reduce salaries of civil servants.
“We don’t reduce the salaries of civil servants. I have not been aware of the issue until it was brought up. That was done because of lack of fiscal space but we want to appeal to the Ministry of Finance to restore that,” he said.

In his keynote address at the 2014 legal year opening, the Chief Justice said downgrading conditions of service of judges was unconstitutional and urged government to address the anomaly.

He said the downward review of conditions of service was likely to impact negatively on justice delivery.
“We have on other occasions pointed out that it is unconstitutional to reduce the conditions of service for judges while they are still in office. This serious breach of the Constitution persists to this date but we remain hopeful that our concerns shall be addressed as soon as the fiscal space allows,” he said.

Chief Justice Chidyausiku was also unhappy with the recent announcement by the Civil Service Commission that it had stopped paying all magistrates’ retention allowances until further notice.

Lawyers employed by the government started getting the monthly allowances in 2011.
That allowance was largely credited with ending strikes by magistrates and prosecutors around that time.