In Court Again Today

Harare, Zimbabwe, 08 October 2009

Just to let you know, I will be late posting some of the articles I have because I am in court today, 08 October with Dr Simba Makoni.

It is still the same old story, that trial for allegedly addressing 410 people at Glendale with a megaphone and without police permission back in March 2008.

Essentially, tomorrow, the Magistrate in the mining town of Bindura will have to decide whether the case goes ahead despite the objections to the prosecution by Makoni that his Constitutional rights of political and association freedom are being violated.

Should the magistrate decide that these rights are paramount and should not be tampered with, then the ruling will be to allow Makoni to approach the Constitutional Bench to challenge POSA, the draconian law under which he is being charged.

I will be very surprised if the leave to appeal is not granted. Which is where the fun will start.

I believe that at the Constitutional Court, Makoni may be able to achieve what the MDC and the Inclusive Government have failed to achieve, which is to get POSA struck off the statutes. Declared illegal and unconstitutional. Null and void, to quote Morgan Tsvangirai.

If the court decides that POSA takes precedence over the Constitution and Constitutional rights, it will be interesting to hear what reasoning it uses to justify such an injustice.

In any case, that would mean proceeding straight to trial, which will then demonstrate that the charges are entirely without merit.

Perhaps after that we can go after the state for wrongful prosecution. Interesting times ahead.

We have to be there first thing in the morning and last time we went there, we were moved from pillar to post and experienced so much delay that we ended up spending the whole day there. I am not sure how it will be today, but as soon as we are back, I will be updating you.