Justice delayed?
It’s become all too predictable that each time Zimbabwe approaches an election, arrests of anyone from reporters to politicians to drunks hits the stratosphere, and this year is coming as no surprise.
But there is a disturbingly comical element to it that you have to ask why the cops apparently always sleep on their jobs seeing that some of these “crimes” border on the ridiculous.
For example, we have Tongai Matutu, the MDC-T legislator for Masvingo Central who faces incarceration for allegedly calling Mugabe a dog some eight years ago. Eight years ago? Surely something must be wrong with this picture.
The Ndebele say “icala kaliboli” literally meaning a crime does not rot as comeuppance will be visited on the offender when they have long forgotten about it.
But then, one has to ask why it would take eight long years for the “wheels of justice” to catch up with Matutu if it is not some arcane and nefarious motive in a country already known to punish people who laugh at the presidential portrait?
This is a country where defenders of the Republic readily beat their chests proclaiming a strict observance and adherence to the rule of law, but it’s a cruel contradiction then that for a country that claims to scrupulously uphold the rule of law, the same justice has been very slow in being applied, effectively denying citizens their right to expeditious legal processes! After all, is it not a well-worn aphorism that “justice delayed is justice denied?”
Early in the year, we had Douglas Mwonzora being arrested for having called Mugabe a goblin back in the excitement of 2008.
Mwonzora has also previously faced arrest where he is alleged to have defrauded someone of ZW350million in 2005!
Law abiding and “fair minded” citizens seeking protection from the Attorney General’s office would no doubt ask why these things are happening now and question the competence of that respected office.
Some would proffer that perhaps someone has been sleeping on the job, but that would be incorrigible naivety as we already know it goes beyond the oft claimed backlog of court cases made worse by shortage of magistrates!
Then there is also Chimanimani West MP Lynette Karenyi who was convicted for “holding an unsanctioned meeting” last year. Last year really?
One could go on and on with this, but it does point to the futility of engaging the Cheka in any political jousting and as long as this continues it makes one shudder to think what crimes, real or imagined, will be “excavated” from the vaults to “let them have it” as the elections loom large!