Is judicial capture reality in Zimbabwe under President Mnangagwa’s watch?

Is judicial capture reality in Zimbabwe under President Mnangagwa’s watch a question that top jurists who are reported to have been in Zimbabwe on a fact-finding mission are seized with?

Below is an article that is informed by the conduct of Makarau JCC who presided over an application for leave of court to intervene in an application launched by Mr. Tichaona Mupasiri under Case Number 34/21 in December 2021.

Below is an article that speaks to the response of the SADC LAWYERS ASSOCIATION to concerns that Zimbabwean judges are not independent and impartial.

Now turning to PART ONE of the constitutional questions that arise from Makarau JCC, a specification order was issued in relation to untested allegations of corruption creates a legal disability that has the effect on a person so specified to have unfettered access to courts of law.

In the above-mentioned matter, a crooked Minister of Justice in the name of Patrick Chinamasa invoked the Presidential Powers that are reserved to deal with national emergencies to deal with the affairs of a private company, SMM Holdings Private Limited (SMM), falling what a prominent Zimbabwean lawyer, Mr. Edwin Manikai describes as a major political fallout that caused Chinamasa to invent a nexus between all companies deemed to be under the control of SMM’s ultimate beneficial shareholder, Mr. Mutumwa Mawere.

Chinamasa promulgated a decree on a Friday or 3 September 2004 under the title: RECONSTRUCTION OF STATE-INDEBTED INSOLVENT COMPANIES regulations and in conflict with the DOCTRINE OF SEPARATION POWERS gave himself exclusive jurisdiction to hijack the control and management of all the targeted companies without the involvement of parliament and the judiciary.

Set out below is an extract of Chinamasa’s affidavit in support of an application to sanitize his extrajudicial order with a veneer of a court’s blessing.

This application was made after the hijack was executed:

The control and management of SMM were placed under Chinamasa’s appointee on 6 September 2004 even though the Administrator’s official appointment letter was dated 14 September 2004, he dismissed the board on 6 September 2004 before his appointment.

The question that arises is the audacity that informed Chinamasa to prosecute this hijack without any concern about the possible non-cooperation of the judiciary.

This drama happened under the watch of the late President Mugabe. It is worth highlighting that Chinamasa’s application for confirmation was not handled by the Attorney General but by a private law firm, DMH Attorneys, that is acting for President Mnangagwa in the Mupasiri constitution challenge.

The address of service in respect of this application was not a government address or the Attorney General’s address but that of DMH Attorneys. What does this say about state capture?

Notwithstanding, the application for confirmation was granted without any judicial resistance notwithstanding the significant constitutional questions that this precedent suggests.

The facts in relation to the ZHL matter referred to above go as follows:

1. THZ Holdings Limited had a direct and substantial interest in the affairs of its wholly-owned subsidiary, Endurite Properties Private Limited (Endurite), and had a direct and indirect interest in ZHL of 46.55% making it the largest single shareholder of ZHL, a listed company on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE)

2. On August 24, 2004, Chinamasa declared both THZH subsidiaries to be specified in terms of s6 of the Preventions of Corruption Act solely to ensure that access to justice was denied before this was called for. This all happened before the reconstruction decree was promulgated.

3. Mr. Reggie Saruchera, Chinamasa’s ally was appointed as the investigator in respect of the two companies.

4. As described by Makarau in her judgment, on 28 January 2005, ZHL held an EGM at which shareholders were to approve or disapprove of a proposed rights issue in the company at a time when the control of the affairs of THZH’s two subsidiary companies was placed under the control of Mr. Saruchera who had no power, right or capacity to substitute the rights of the affected companies as shareholders. Ordinarily, a specification order is an asset preservation order and rarely has a company’s control and management be divested using public power under the guise of fighting against corruption.

5. The constitutional question that arises is whether a company whose control and management had been divested by an act of state can concurrently be placed under reconstruction pursuant to the use of public power to achieve both conflicting objectives.

6. The effect of a specification order in relation to a juristic entity has not been sufficient to allow for any definitive conclusion to be drawn on whether it was part of an organized and orchestrated scheme to use this novel route to achieve what expropriation of property rights delivers in relation totalitarian regimes.

7. What is clear is that there was no judicial resistance to the abuse of state power in divesting THZH of the control of its subsidiary companies. The specification order issued against Endurite and UKI was anticipatory and predatory as the events that unfolded confirmed Makarau JCC’s enabling role in delivering the promise of using state power for ulterior banking on a compliant and compromised judiciary.

8. THZH believing the rule of law was applicable in Zimbabwe approached the Court in Case Number HC 542/05 seeking an order setting aside as invalid, the resolutions both special and ordinary on the legitimate grounds that such resolution would be dead absent the abuse of public power sanctioned by Makarau JCC.

9. Makarau JCC knew that Gwaradzimba was a creature of statute and permitting his application to be joined in the proceedings constituted an abuse of court processes in that an organ of state would assume with judicial tolerance rights that were directly derived from the abuse of public power to infringe on the rights and freedoms of bona fide shareholders.

10. It is significant that Makarau JCC was alive to the fact that Chinamasa’s extrajudicial notice did not refer to ZHL specifically but was intentionally manipulated outside the regulations to apply to this listed company by her.

11. Makarau JCC made an astonishing finding: “I am of the view that the acceptance of the situation by both ZHL and the state-appointed hijacker is proper and accordingly accept that ZHL is under reconstruction order issued by the Minister.”

12. If anyone had any doubt about judicial capture, what Makarau JCC said below is decisive and instructive: