Evil that hides behind the civil

Just last week, on this very page, we carried an interview with one Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana. He is a lawyer, a Zanu-PF lawyer and deputy secretary for the party's legal affairs.

He is one of the main faces, or the most jovial looking faces during the constitution-making processes that gave us the new charter in 2013.The new Constitution is so rich, let's say liberal, in its provisions regarding rights and freedoms.

To its credit, it has what is called a Bill of Rights that has won so much admiration from many quarters, some of which are not exactly friendly.

The same Constitution has the beautiful Section 59 which provides for, "Freedom to demonstrate and petition: Every person has the right to demonstrate and to present petitions, but these rights must be exercised peacefully."

It is this section, short as it is — whether intentionally or otherwise — that has been instrument of a lot of demonstration activity by opposition forces of late.

The demonstrations have been violent as goons have taken to the streets to loot and destroy property.

In general, the opposition believes that it can use this small part of the Constitution, to subvert the whole edifice of legality in Zimbabwe pursuant to regime change.

It was then that Baffour Ankomah noted in his piece in the New African magazine that, "Zim's well-intentioned law triggers violent agitation".

It is a pity, a disappointment rather that, he did not treat us to an expansive analysis of the same law but rather gave us a narration of activities bordering on the abuse of Section 59 of the Constitution.

But, as always with Baffour, the gist and spirit was right.

Playground of the courts

We all saw the streets turn into a carnival of chaos and festival of looting and destruction.

The opposition has been watching and enjoying this orgy with something of a dirty pleasure, hoping it would birth some grotesque creature of power.

But this madness had to stop.

The people were getting fed up with it and the police, naturally, were unhappy with this extra burden.

It did not help that they did not appear too much on top of the situation.

zanu-pf, the ruling party, was getting unhappy too.

So the pressure lay largely on the hands of the police.

They had to quell the riots on the streets using their well-worn methods.

They deployed riot police officers, who apart from netting one or two rioters, made handy use of teargas to dissipate the riots and disperse the crowd.

The police has another weapon in its armour: to, as the regulating authority, ban or suspend rallies or demos.

They often cite lack of resources or inadequacy of venues.

This time around, they issued a whole Statutory Instrument to effect a two-week ban on demos in Harare's CBD and surrounds.

Both actions by police, that is trying to "ban" or rather proscribe, individual rallies and the blanket ban have been challenged in the courts of law.

Invariably, the courts have found the side of police wanting and went on to grant a go-ahead on the applied for actions.

So the courts have become as much a playground as the streets. The same urban guerilla tactics used on the streets have been subsumed in court actions.

And boy, it has been not looked good!

It's "lawfare".

This is where we recall Mangwana's interview, especially in the wake of the setting aside of the police ban by the High Court, fronted by the beautiful face of Justice Priscilla Chigumba.

The temptation was to point a finger at the courts for, at least being reckless.

Yet, as we correctly noted, the blame lay elsewhere — that is the State: the police and state attorneys.

Last week Mangwana argued: "The courts look at the arguments presented by a certain body. I think what is important is to train the police.

"When they deny somebody a right to demonstrate, they must have solid ground and present their cases very strongly before the court.

"The courts simply look at whether you have presented a case denying that right to demonstrate properly. So you can't fault the courts if you bring a weak case, you have to bring a strong case.

"The police or the State has to say, this right to demonstrate, because Posa (Public Order and Security Act) is the one which limits the right to demonstrate.

"But you must justify it before the courts. If you don't justify it properly you will be denied. They will be allowed to demonstrate. So we have to look at it on its merit.

"We have to train our officers-in-charge, who deny the right to petition. They must give good reasons. If there are no good reasons, the courts will not accept."

That does say it all, doesn't it?

The police — and oh, they have a legal department, must do eternally better when it comes to confronting the situation they are being presented with.

Urban terrorism is sure to present new challenges and games on the streets can only get dirtier and dicier.

They may require more than tanks and an irritant called teargas.

On the issue of "lawfare", it also calls upon authorities to be a lot smarter than they are presently because there are risks associated with confronting people who fight dirty even in dignified places.

Even when the play appears innocent enough and for civil purposes and the so-called human rights, we all know that evil is behind these "civil" disturbances and actions.