HomeOld_PostsWhen the law complemented the gun

When the law complemented the gun

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THE nation has again been plunged into mourning with the passing on of yet another illustrious son of the soil, Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku.
He has been described elsewhere in the paper as a legal guru whose convictions where unshakable.
While the average villager, the chimbwido, mujibha and war veteran who was deprived of education as he/she served the motherland during the liberation struggle might not fully understand the law qualifications and depths of the veteran lawman, still they appreciate immeasurable contributions of the departed Chief Justice.
At the height of the Land Reform and Resettlement Programme, the third chimurenga, the jambanja period there was a moment when the brave men and women were confounded by the legal jargon, especially its process.
Suddenly a noble act, an aspiration nearly a 100 years old, was declared illegal.
Suddenly owners of the land, varidzi vevhu/ abantwana bomhlabathi were declared criminals for reclaiming what rightfully belonged to them, what had been stolen from them.
While these judges were making rulings against the people seeking to reclaim what was theirs, they were using their powers to acquit white criminals.
A case in point was when High Court Judge Fergus Blackie held a ‘kangaroo’ court at night in Nyamandlovu to release detained white farmers.
The same judge would go on to sentence the then Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa to three months in jail for contempt after he challenged him over a ruling of his but Blackie would go on to quash a ruling on a white woman convicted of stealing from her employer.
As all this happened, sons and daughters of the soil wondered what was happening.
Where was this legal bench from?
In which country did it exist?
Serving whose interests?
Why were we encumbered by a hostile bench?
Did we not have qualified blacks who could sit on the bench?
We regained our freedoms and rights after an arduous liberation struggle and oppression and victimisation by whites in a free Zimbabwe rankled.
The title of judge did not give them the right to brutalise us.
It is the above that makes Chidyausiku a significant character in our national discourse.
What we did with the gun, he did with the law.
The white bench was determined to suppress, using the ‘law’, the desires of the black majority.
They were bent on serving the interest of the white minority, at all costs.
The gun that we wielded brought democracy into the country.
And the law that Chidyausiku was well versed in brought justice to the black majority who had all the while been prejudiced.
The chief justice served, driven not by the colour of his skin but the conviction of what was right.
When we waged the liberation struggle, we sought not to dislodge whites but an evil system that did not recognise blacks or see them as human beings with rights.
And when Chidyausiku was appointed, his duty was not to serve a particular people against another but to see that the law, that right prevailed over wrong.
His landmark rulings on the land question were steeped not in bias but on what was right, fair and just.
Chidyausiku proved himself a competent jurist.
If he erred, he erred on the side of the law, of right.
Rest in peace legal guru!

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