africalegalbrief.com

A recent South African court judgement that wants Pretoria to investigate Zimbabwean officials for alleged human rights abuses brings the SA justice system into disrepute, a Cabinet minister has said.

Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa yesterday described the ruling as irrelevant saying it was a general judgement without specifics.
Judge Hans Fabricius handed down the judgement in Pretoria last week saying it would stem the flood of ‘economic and political refugees’ into South Africa. The ruling becomes the first ever under South Africa’s statutes spelling out its international law obligations.

HARARE,  – Zimbabwe will send government ministers this week to hold talks with European Union officials over sanctions slapped on President Robert Mugabe and his circle a decade ago, state media said Sunday.

“We have confirmed the meeting and the ministers will leave on Tuesday” for Brussels, foreign affairs secretary Joey Bimha told the state-owned Sunday Mail newspaper.

As the French and Greeks went to vote in tightly contested polls yesterday in which early exit polls showed that Nicolas Sarkozy had been given the boot, in Russia, former Prime Minister Vladmir Putin is being sworn in today as new president for the next six years. The weekend also saw United States of America president Barack Obama officially launching his re-election campaign. Lately, the African continent which has been a picture of doom and gloom in some Western countries’ eyes has been registering significant changes.

Various opinions are doing the rounds on the internet and other forms of media with regard to the issue of dual citizenship in Zimbabwe under the new draft Constitution should it become law.

This is in light of the impasse between the three Zimbabwean political parties that make up the inclusive government (ZANU PF, MDC-T, and MDC) on how to proceed with this rather sensitive issue, which may or may not have far reaching implications on the power dynamics in the country.

THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe says it has no obligation to pay a cotton spinning company over R2,6 million withdrawn from its two bank accounts five years ago.

I have just been reading C G Tracey’s “All for Nothing?”, itself a weeping autobiography by one of Rhodesia’s leading farmers and, especially after UDI, one of Rhodesia’s leading sanctions-busters. The book is tearful about the loss of Tracey’s Mount Shannon, aka Mount Lothian farm, apparently in the course of our  land reforms. But the book gives one the sense that this land loss triggers a long introspection in Tracey, much of it coinciding with major turns and shifts in the life of Southern Rhodesia both before and after UDI.

Honourable Vice President Joice Teurai Ropa Mujuru, Honourable Vice President John Landa Nkomo, Honourable Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, Honourable Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara and Mai Mutambara, Honourable Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe, Mai Muzenda, Honourable President of the Senate, Mai Edna Madzongwe, honourable Speaker of the House of Assembly, Mr Lovemore Moyo,