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ZADHR will sue Gvt to secure forex for drugs - Placid forced to act, 'charova sei chando!'

11 Oct 2018 at 19:11hrs | Views
"Charova sei chando kukwidza hamba mumuti!" (It will have to be bitterly cold to force the tortoise to seek warmth up a tree! It will take unusual hardships to force the placid and indifferent to act!)

Zimbabwe's worsening economic meltdown is certainly forcing some of our slumbering sloths to wake up. Things will have to be a lot worse to force the tortoise up the tree.

"The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) board resolved and gave government through the ministry of Health and Child Care, the ministry of Finance and Economic Development and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe a 72-hour ultimatum to announce measures that will ensure adequate allocation of foreign currency from the central bank for drug procurement," ZADHR spokesperson Fortune Nyamande told the Daily News.

If the funding is not provided, ZADHR will lodge an urgent constitutional court challenge citing government's violation of the right to healthcare as provided under international and Zimbabwean law.

On the court challenge itself; the challenge should be based on something more subtle such as demanding the justification for government spending hundreds of millions of dollars buying new cars for Chiefs, Zanu PF party leaders, etc. and on chartered but failing to buy life-saving drugs.

No Court in the world would expect every government to fulfil utopian wishes like everyone having the right to health care, education, clean drinking water, etc., etc.!

Indeed, one of the things that makes our 2013 Constitution such a wishy-washy constitution is its failure to separate deliverable political rights such as the right to free, fair and credible elections from the aspirational rights such as the right to health care. Tyrannical regime like this Zanu PF have willingly promised to deliver both only to end up denying the people all their rights!

One has to question ZADHR the wisdom of taking the case to a Zimbabwean court – the same legal system that less than a year ago ruled that a military coup is "legal and constitutional"!  

Just getting someone in ZADHR to be finally roused to even issue this statement is a great achievement! What roused them is simple enough to ascertain – the worsening economic situation, the bitterly cold weather threaten to force the tortoise to seek shelter up a tree.

These doctors know the shortage of drugs affect not only the patient but all those whose livelihood depend, directly or indirectly, on the health care system. Yes the patients will suffer and many will die but every doctor, nurse, pharmacist, etc. knows, without the patients, they are next to suffer and many will die too!  
 
Sadly our roused slumbering sloth, Zimbabwe's health care has taken decades to sink into this sorry state and the ZADHR never lifted a finger until now, is not going to do much other than make some farting noise. We have all heard about these ultimatum and court challenges, especially from the opposition and the country's morbid civic society, which all frizzle out into nothing!
 
Chamisa took his election result challenge to the Con-Court and the Judges, in their infinite wisdom, refused to consider all sworn affidavit evidence before them. They will only consider "primary source evidence", they insisted. And that primary source evidence was only found in the sealed ballot boxes.

The Judges could have ordered the boxes to be opened, they did not want the primary source evidence to confirm the truth the mountain of "secondary source evidence" was already telling them.

The Judges blamed the plaintiff for failing to ask for the ballot boxes to be opened and yet ignored that the request was made but denied by powers that be – powers that the Judges themselves did not want to dare challenge!

Of course, the Con-Court connived to make sure the sealed ballot boxes were not opened at all cost – they were the Judges' bolt hole through which they escape on their sworn duty to delivering justice. Why we even bother to call these buffoons "Justice" when that is the one thing they do not delivery, beggars belief!

ZADHR are taking their turn, seeking justice from the same compromised Judges, known for tampering with the law to escape upholding their constitutional duty of upholding the law and delivering justice.



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