DR MASIMBA MAVAZA |Obstruction Of Justice may consist of any attempt to hinder the discovery, apprehension, conviction or punishment of anyone who has committed a crime. The acts by which justice is obstructed may include bribery, murder, intimidation, and the use of physical force against witnesses, law enforcement officers or court officials obstruction can be committed by abusing authority in the case of of the honourable VP Mphoko. It is saddening and a very dark day in Zimbabwean legal History that a whole VP walks into a Police Station masquerades as a lawyer. Abuses his powers and releases two suspects who have stolen from the same government he leads. The act of the VP was not only shameful but criminal.
The Vice President is not supposed to say that someone should or should not be prosecuted.
We have a system of justice that is supposed to be independent of politics and individuals. It is improper for a Vice President to say that someone will or will not be prosecuted. No one is supposed to be above the law.
It is not only those ancient days when it was accepted that the Justice Department was independent from the president and politicians that the Attorney General now the PG and others should make decisions absent from political considerations, and that when it seemed as if independence might not be possible, the AG should recuse him/herself and appoint a special prosecutor.
If there’s suspicion and clear evidence that people broke laws, an inquiry should begin. If the AG feels undue pressure from Vice President and his gang then he should appoint a special prosecutor to try to wall off the investigation from political pressure.
This is an example of just how badly the VP has distorted our system, when everyone later takes it for granted that this is how things are done. It is also an example of why we need to investigate and prosecute lawbreaking. If you don’t lay down the law the things that are allowed to slide becomes the norm.
The arrival of a broadly based democracy was invariably followed by rising public expectations of the state: as the provider of basic standards of public amenity, as the guarantor of minimum levels of security and, increasingly, as a regulator of economic activity and a protector against misfortune of every kind and a Role model of Justice These expectations are shuttered by the way leaders without shame violate the law and go scott free. The immense powers exercised by the VP over his own citizens have arisen almost entirely from the collective aspirations of the population at large, aspirations which depend for their fulfilment on persistent intervention by the state in many areas of our national life, and which no democratic politician can ignore.
The truth is that a powerful executive is inherent in the democratic character of the modern state.
In one sense it can be said that the unspoken object of most modern democratic constitutions is to treat the people as a source of legitimacy, while placing barriers between them and the levers of power.
In a nutshell the embarrassment of the decade is to see the whole VP ordering a constable to release a suspect. Protocol would have demanded that the VP calls the minister responsible who will call the police commissioner who will order the descending rank to release the suspects. The behaviour of the VP if true was totally out of line and inhumane. This could be total madness or just insanity whichever is greater.
In normal circumstances the VP would resign in shame but in this situation he will remind us that he was in the bush long enough to respect any law. Albeit all this will be said from his Hotel room.
[email protected]