Tomana should be applauded and commended and not demonised

IT IS disappointing but not surprising that the MDC-T and its media mouthpieces have predictably reacted in their usual irresponsible fashion of personalising everything by demonising Attorney General Johannes Tomana for his otherwise commendable decision not to continue with the prosecution of Elton Mangoma.

The Energy Minister's eagerly-awaited trial on allegations of illegally and corruptly cancelling a ZETDC tender process was supposed to start at the High Court in Harare on Monday.

The MDC-T's demonisation of Tomana is not surprising at all because the British founded and funded party has since his appointment seen Tomana as a fatal obstacle to their sponsored illegal regime change agenda in Zimbabwe. Indeed, Tsvangirai's MDC faction has even tried but failed to use the false cover of the GPA to seek Tomana's unconstitutional removal from office.

But while the MDC-T's reckless posture is not surprising given the party's neo-colonial British roots and its anti-Zimbabwe mission, it is very disappointing to note that the posture has given rise to a kind of treachery which has so blinded the MDC-T that it can no longer even see or acknowledge the obvious.

There are three self-evident and therefore obvious facts about Monday's decision by the Attorney General not proceed with the prosecution of Mangoma which serious and fair-minded people with no malice or any axe to grind must acknowledge, regardless of their political or personal attitudes against Tomana.

Firstly, the Attorney General made the decision to halt the prosecution as an expression of the rule of law arising from our Constitution which empowers him to decide at any time as he may deem it right to either start or stop any prosecution as an independent authority without any influence, direction or control by any other authority.  This is to say, the Constitution empowers the Attorney General to start or stop any prosecution on the basis of his independent interpretation of the facts before him given the law.

Secondly, and given his constitutional powers to decide whether to start or stop any prosecution, you do not have to be a lawyer to see or understand that the Attorney General's decision not start the prosecution of Mangoma was made necessary by the minister's acquittal on June 28 in a separate case. High Court Judge Chinembiri Bhunu ruled then that there was no prima facie case to justify putting him on his defence against corruption charges that he had violated the law and State procurement procedures by illegally awarding a tender to supply five million litres of diesel to an allegedly unqualified South African company whose service delivery was so defective that it is yet to deliver some one million litres more than six months after the fact.

Although the earlier case involved the supply of diesel to NOCZIM, and the case that was supposed to go on trial today involved the supply of prepayment revenue management meters to ZETDC, the facts of the two cases were as they are materially and substantially similar. As such, it would have been unreasonable and in fact unprofessional for the Attorney General to expect the same High Court that made an earlier decision in a case involving the same accused person who was now in similar circumstances involving similar facts as those of the earlier case that had set a precedence to reach a different decision in the new case.

The right thing to do was to drop the charges. Yet dropping the charges was not the only thing to do, it was only the right thing to do as determined by the Attorney General as an officer of the Court and in the interest of justice.

Thirdly, and given the foregoing, it would have been wrong for the Attorney General to press ahead with the prosecution of Mangoma's case when he knew that it was not the right thing to do in view of the precedence set by the decision of the High Court in the first case on June 28. That precedence assured a foregone conclusion had the Attorney General proceeded with the prosecution of the second case on Monday.

Against this background, Attorney General Tomana should be applauded and commended and not demonised for taking a proper decision which shames his detractors in so far as it proves beyond doubt that he is independent as required of him by the law and professional as expected of him by the public.

If Tomana was as malicious as claimed by his thoughtless MDC-T detractors, he would have proceeded with the prosecution to maliciously inconvenience Mangoma by prosecuting him just for the sake of prosecuting him. The trial would have started on Monday and gone on for as long as necessary without any sweat.

The fact that nothing of the sort happened speaks volumes about the courage, independence, integrity and professionalism of Johannes Tomana as Zimbabwe's Attorney General sworn to uphold the law regardless of his well-known and lawful allegiance to Zanu PF in the same way that the US Attorney General is a confirmed Democrat.

In any other civilised society, the courage, independence, integrity and professionalism displayed in Court by Tomana would be acknowledged, celebrated and encouraged as exemplary. The time has come for Zimbabweans to show their maturity without being distracted by hooligans who cannot recognise the rule of law even when it smacks them on their ugly faces.

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Professor Jonathan Moyo is MP for Tsholotsho North (Zanu PF)