The Committee on Justice, Legal Affairs, Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs, chaired by Hon. Tongai Matutu, met on 1st February to hear oral evidence from the Chief Magistrate and Attorney-General on the state of the justice delivery system.

Attorney-General Johannes Tomana conceded that malice, corruption, misjudgment and human error on the part of his law officers could not be ruled out in their use of section 121 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act.

Use of this section has the effect of keeping the accused in custody for an additional seven days to give the State time to appeal the granting of bail.

This section has been frequently used against human rights defenders and legitimate political activists and in most cases the State did not bother to file an appeal within the 7 days, and those appeals filed were dismissed as being groundless, so the only purpose served was that of harassment, by keeping the innocent accused person detained.

Murky Diamonds

The Committee on Mines and Energy heard evidence from the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe [MMCZ], Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation [ZMDC] and the Police Minerals Unit.

Committee chairperson Hon Chindori-Chininga noted carelessness on government’s part in the mining and marketing of Chiadwa diamonds.

He said a blind eye had been cast on irregular and unprocedural activities in the sector, and the committee did not want to be associated with corruption.

These comments followed the revelation that MMCZ did not in fact have a written agreement with Mbada Diamond Mining Company which is currently extracting diamonds with the blessing of some government officials, butnot the MMCZ hich has the statutory responsibility to do so.

Mbada was said to have an agreement with the Government giving it marketing rights outside MMCZ, but no evidence to this effect was produced. The committee dismissed MMCZ, ZMDC and police claims that they had had no prior knowledge of Mbada’s attempted auction of diamonds on 7th January.

The auction was only halted after public outcry and the negative publicity associated with the intended sale, and committee members expressed concern about the adverse effects this would have when Kimberly Process Certification is sought.

On 4th February the Deputy Sheriff took diamonds from MMCZ to the Reserve Bank for safe custody in terms of the Chief Justice’s order dated 25th January; but later the same day the diamonds were removed from the Reserve Bank by police, in apparent reliance on a more recent direction from the Chief Justice conveyed to the MMCZ lawyers by the Supreme Court Registrar.