Mugabe makes ally chief justice

A controversial judge who is a strong supporter of President Robert Mugabe and his ruling ZANU-PF party became the embattled country’s new chief justice on Monday, news agency DPA reported. Godfrey Chidyausiku, sworn in by Mugabe, succeeded Anthony Gubbay, one of the most respected judges in the Commonwealth, the report said. Gubbay resigned in March after being threatened with violence by Mugabe’s ruling party militias.

Also on Monday, Mugabe swore in three new High Court judges, none of whom had any significant record, the report quoted legal experts as saying. One of the three, Nicholas Ndou, was a magistrate in 1984 when he refused to convene an inquiry into the discovery of the bodies of two opposition party officials in a riverbed in southern Zimbabwe. The bodies showed signs of torture and were found during a state security force campaign to eliminate opposition supporters and officials.

The report quoted observers as saying that the appointments marked a new low in the decline of the country’s judiciary, formerly hailed internationally for its independence. Legal sources pointed out that Chidyausiku was preceded by the country’s first black chief justice, Enock Dumbutshena, whose term Mugabe refused to extend after he passed a series of damning judgments against torture and violence by the regime.

The report quoted sources saying that Chidyausiku, 54, was an independent member of the former Rhodesian parliament from 1974 to 1977, became a ZANU-PF member of parliament in 1980, and after serving as attorney general, was appointed a high court judge in 1987. His judgeship was followed by a series of rapid promotions as Mugabe appointed him repeatedly to state commissions of inquiry whose findings resulted in angry outcries, the report said.