MDC T commends ConCourt over Tomana

The MDC T has commended the Constitutional Court for standing on the side of the common people by robustly fulfilling its constitutional duty to enforce the Constitution and defend the rule of law by slapping the Prosecutor General Johannes Tomana with a jail term for contempt of court for abusing his office to corruptly protect a suspected fraudster and child rapist.

"The MDC T salutes Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights for continuing to stand tall for the people," said Fungayi Jessie Majome, the MDC-T Secretary for Justice Legal and Parliamentary Affairs.

"The MDC T is vindicated as it has long declared the Prosecutor General unfit for office for his openly declared political partisanship to ZANU PF. Now he continues to work his hardest to demonstrate that he is utterly unfit for the crucial post."

She said first it was the abomination of supporting child marriage when he should be prosecuting offenders in terms of Section 3 of The Domestic Violence Act (Chapter 5:16) that he is evidently ignorant of.

"Next was his warped view of his powers and independence as Prosecutor General, of believing that he is higher than the law and the courts and is the last word in prosecution, and even throwing his weight like a bull in a china shop to intimidate his justified critics for the delusional 'offence' of undermining the authority his office," she said.

"The MDC T is appalled by the collusion between the Executive and the hapless and dangerous Prosecutor General in subverting the legislative process to amend the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act so that it sanitizes and forestalls his defiance of and hence contempt of the High Court. The MDC T's efforts to resist that nefarious anti-people amendment were thwarted by that unholy alliance."

Majome said the MDC T is encouraged, however, that the Constitutional Court ruling has given a new lease of life to access to criminal justice for ordinary people who the Prosecutor General is not connected to.

"The recent amendment to bar private prosecutions by individuals and companies now needs to be knocked down by the courts as unconstitutional as soon as it is assented to," she said. "The Prosecutor General's persistently corrupt behavior is not only an insult to the national interest, but puts the office of the Prosecutor General into gross disrepute, and is an utter a disgrace to the legal profession. He is wholly unfit for purpose, in fact he does not know the purpose of his office i.e. to protect the public from criminals."

She said the MDC T recommends that the Prosecutor General only needs to read the heading of Chapter 13 of the Constitution that establishes his office as an 'Institution(s) to Combat Corruption and Crime'.

"The MDC T is alarmed that he instead combats the public's aspirations for a crime and corruption-free society, and acts instead as the offender general and chief criminal protector, posing the biggest ever danger to the public," she said.

"He is appallingly ignorant and uncomprehending of the letter and spirit of the Constitution particularly the founding value of good governance which entails 'respect for the people of Zimbabwe for whom the authority to govern is derived' as per section 3(2)(f)."

Majome said the MDC T is perturbed that that Prosecutor General is a hazard to the national interest and Zimbabwean society.

"The MDC T therefore calls upon the Prosecutor General to resign before he does any more harm. If he does not do so the MDC T demands, as the only way of saving the taxpaying public from his paedophilic and cleptocratphilliac prosecuting policy, that the President now appoints a tribunal to investigate the question of his necessary removal from office in terms of section 187(2) as read with section 258(7) of the Constitution. To save the public, Tomana must go," she said.