Charlene Shumba
The ongoing hullabaloo surrounding the “the-storm-in-a-cup,” that is the tenure of the Chief Justice of Zimbabwe makes sad reading. The ongoing onslaught against the Judiciary, particularly the Chief Justice, High Court and Supreme Court judges, is not an isolated attack. It is part of a matrix of strategies being deployed by Zimbabwe’s erstwhile western enemies after realising the futility of their direct funding to the opposition MDC Alliance with the sole aim of effecting western-sponsored regime change.
In their sordid scheming, the decimation and corruption of the Judiciary would paralyse this key arm of the State. It is common cause that a functional democracy requires the three arms of the State: the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary to operate in complementarity for checks and balances. This breeds accountability.
Media scholars and human rights activists have added to this triumvirate the 4th and 5th Estates, the traditional media and social media, respectively, whose mandate is to further enhance accountability to the electorate in a democratic polity.
Dear reader, it is trite to note that western embassies have tried in vain to capture the Legislature, through opposition MDC Alliance legislators, pursuant to crass neo-colonial interests that are ultra vires the aspirations of the Zimbabwean people. This onslaught, which is deployed through Parliamentary Sub-Committees dominated by opposition parties, is aimed at besmirching the ruling Party and Government, while simultaneously seeking to torpedo the enactment of pro-Zimbabwe and anti-imperial laws such as the Patriotic Bill and Constitutional Amendment No 2. All these attempts have failed owing to the unassailable majority that ZANU PF commands in Parliament, thanks to patriotic Zimbabweans who continue to vest their trust in the people’s Party.
Realising the futility of their machinations, the western-sponsored opposition is now using all-manner of lawfare to attack the Judiciary, which has steadfastly been dispensing the law as crafted by the Legislature to stymie neo-imperial interests.
To that end, lawyervists have been roped in to destabilise the Judiciary in the hope of stirring a Constitutional crisis, which would act as a precursor to a final onslaught against the Executive ahead of the 2023 harmonised elections.
It would be recalled that the west has captured sections of the 4th Estate and deployed a coterie of social media activists to peddle subversive material, using the 5th Estate. This well-choreographed effort will undoubtedly fail, the very same way the colonial regime failed. It will be fought. It will be defeated. It will be exposed.
Already, local proxies acting against local interests, but actively pursuing foreign policies of the country’s aggressors are on red notice as the crafting of the Patriotic Bill has begun in earnest.
Such sell-outism will be obliterated.
The Chief Justice will serve his 5 years as envisioned by the President. He is well within the Constitutional 15 years’ limit. He is of sound mind and health.
The bench will be protected by the laws of the land. It will dispense justice without fear or favour. All elements that have been recruited on the bench will be fished out and exposed. Gone are the days when neo-imperial interests were left to fester unchecked!
