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Vice President Manangagwa officially opened the Masvingo High Court

WE welcome the opening of a permanent High Court in Masvingo and urge the government to set up more superior courts in other cities to improve the justice delivery system in the country. The Masvingo High Court is the third High Court after the Harare and Bulawayo ones and in future we hope to see courts being set up in Mutare and Gweru to hear cases in those areas.

he decentralisation of the justice delivery system is a long overdue process and the opening of the Masvingo High Court — 122 years after the last one was set up in Bulawayo — shows the government’s commitment to bringing justice to the people. We applaud the Judicial Service Commission for ensuring that the court was opened despite the meagre resources at their disposal.

The Harare and Bulawayo High Courts are relics of the colonial system and the Masvingo High Court becomes the first one to be opened after independence. The new facility will help decongest the roll at the Harare and Bulawayo courts while expediting the hearing of cases in Masvingo.
High Court judges in the country’s two biggest cities will also have more time to attend to cases in other centres such as Gweru, Hwange and Mutare. Khami and Chikurubi maximum security prisons will also benefit from the Masvingo High Court as some of the serious crimes from the province will be heard at the new court.

Masvingo province is one of the areas with a high murder rate and the high court is expected to help deal with such cases. We hail the JSC for the speed with which they rehabilitated and furnished the new High Court in Masvingo using very little resources and agree with Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku that with the right attitude and determination, more courts can be opened throughout the country.

In his address at the official opening of the Masvingo High Court on Monday, Chief Justice Chidyausiku, said: “Let’s get away from this habit of always complaining that we cannot do this and that because there are no resources. Let’s use the little resources that are at our disposal to do something because at the end, we will discover that we would have solved some of our problems,” he said.

“The JSC took 105 days to rehabilitate and furnish the new High Court in Masvingo using very little resources and this new High Court is the first to be opened in this country after the last one was opened in 1894 — that is 122 years ago.”

He said the JSC wanted to open the High Court in cities such as Mutare and Gweru but decided to first settle for Masvingo because of the availability of an unused building that was upgraded to the superior court. The decentralisation of the justice delivery system is also in synch with the government’s thrust to root out corruption and other commercial crimes and speed up dispute resolution to enhance the ease of doing business.

Corruption is a cancer that has taken root in Zimbabwe and is blighting the country’s chances of attracting much needed Foreign Direct Investment.

Officially opening the Masvingo High Court, Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa said the government would escalate the fight against corruption as he warned criminals who threatened the country’s potential as an investment destination. He singled out corruption as the biggest threat to Zimbabwe’s drive to achieve its full potential as a prime investment destination.

“While, therefore, we continue in our endeavour to create jobs, uplift the quality of life of our people and promote the moral regeneration of our communities, we will escalate our determination to attain zero tolerance against crime particularly corruption, which has a corrosive, negative and retrogressive impact on our society as it undermines trust in Government, erodes citizens’ ethical standards and gnaws away at society’s moral fabric and the potential of our nation as a preferred investment destination.”

He added: “We hereby send the sternest warning to criminals that they have no place to hide in our republic. In keeping with the intention of Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No.20) Act 2013, our primary goal is to foster accountability and good governance at every level and in all spheres of our national endeavour, including raising Zimbabwe’s corruption perception indices to acceptable levels.”

We welcome the commitment from the government to weed out corruption and urge the judiciary to be ruthless with perpetrators of the vice. We also commend the State for the envisaged establishment of specialised commercial courts as these will deal effectively and speedily with disputes of a business nature.