CHIEF Justice Luke Malaba has been caught in a legal storm for allegedly instructing judges to attend a workshop that will be addressed by Zanu PF principal director at the ruling party’s Chitepo School of Ideology and director-general of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO).
Judges, who spoke to NewsDay, said having members of the bench attend a workshop to be addressed by political party officials and the CIO was a serious attack on the independence of the Judiciary.
“Many of us are unhappy with this order . . . it’s unconscionable and a serious attack on the independence of the Judiciary,” a judge who preferred anonymity said.
“There is no justification that judges would sit to be trained by a principal director of Chitepo’s School of Ideology and come out without being tainted in the eyes of the public.”
A memo dated June 26 addressed to judges says the workshop is scheduled for July 4 and 5 at a hotel in the capital, where training will be led by the Office of the President and Cabinet.
“We write to advise that there is going to be training by the Office of the President and Cabinet for all judges on the integrated results based management performance evaluation of judges,” the memo read.
A lawyer, who spoke to NewsDay, said a performance evaluation of judges should fall under the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) and could not be subcontracted to the Executive.
“The Executive cannot, under our Constitution, do a performance evaluation of an independent arm of government,” the lawyer said.
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“The Judiciary must not and should not submit itself to the President’s Office.”
The programme shows that the judges will be addressed by the Zanu PF principal of Chitepo School of Ideology Ishmael Mada and CIO director-general Fulton Magwaya as well as Finance permanent secretary George Guvamatanga.
JSC secretary Walter Chikwana was not picking calls and the commission’s spokesperson Daniel Nemukuyu did not respond to messages sent on his WhatsApp number.
This workshop has caused a scare within the legal fraternity with lawyers frowning at the memo.
