A Dangerous Precedent – Why Beatrice Mtetwa’s Attack on Justice Malaba Is Really an Attack on the Courts.

The legal fraternity thrives on robust debate. But there is a line between critique and intimidation, between commentary and contempt. Beatrice Mtetwa’s recent article on the legacy of retired Chief Justice Luke Malaba crosses that line, and in doing so, it threatens the very independence of the judiciary she claims to defend.


Let’s be blunt: this piece is not a sober assessment of judicial history. It is a carefully timed intervention aimed at the present, not the past. Mutetwa and Thabani Mpofu have made themselves the legal gurus and are now legal Mafias. They control the JSC and they decide the fate of judges and have the JSC secretary Walter Chikwanha in their pockets. They managed to pull Chikwana’s balls and blinded Malaba to go after Judge Katiyo. It is not a secret that Thabani Mpofu has been seen with a certain Legal Officer in Katiyo’s Tribunal and yet Thabani Mpofu is the architect of Katiyo’s baseless charges. The article by Mtetwa and Thabani in the background  is a direct attempt to put the current chief justice in their pockets. 

The Timing Betrays the Intent  

Mtetwa’s article landed while a case concerning the Constitutional Amendment Bill – CAB3 – is still live before the courts, with judgment reserved. The article dwells repeatedly on CAB3, on Malaba’s dissent in Mawarire v Mugabe, and on what she claims the “right” constitutional approach should be. 

No one needs to guess the audience. The only person who can now decide CAB3 is the current Chief Justice and the bench hearing it. To publish a public polemic dissecting how a judge “should” have ruled, and how any departure from that view is evidence of servility, is a direct appeal to the sitting Chief Justice to decide in one particular way. 

That is not advocacy. That is pressure. And when that pressure comes from one of the country’s most senior litigators, it risks being read as an attempt to influence the outcome of a reserved judgment. Our courts cannot function if litigants and their counsel try to litigate judgments in the press after the hearing is closed.

This Is an Attack on the Office, Not Just the Man  

Mtetwa spends pages dismantling Justice Malaba’s legacy, calling him a “gatekeeper”, accusing him of running the JSC as a “personal fiefdom”, and claiming he delivered justice on a “silver platter” to the Executive. 

Even if one disagrees with specific judgments, the language used is designed to soil the institutional reputation of the office of Chief Justice itself. The office does not retire with the man. By casting the entire Malaba era as a betrayal of constitutionalism, the article seeks to delegitimize the continuity of the judiciary and to preload public opinion against any future rulings that do not align with her preferred outcome.

It is also an affront to the many judges and magistrates who served under Justice Malaba and who take pride in their independence and professionalism. To suggest that the entire bench was cowed into a “herd mentality” is to insult the integrity of those officers without a shred of proof.

The Real Danger: Normalizing Judicial Intimidation  

The most corrosive part of the article is its subtext: if you do not rule as I want, you will be publicly shamed as a failed constitutionalist when you retire. That is intimidation. 

Judges are not elected. They cannot respond in the press. They must decide based on law, evidence, and the Constitution, free from public clamor and private pressure. When senior lawyers use newspapers to signal to the current Chief Justice that she is being watched, and that history will judge her harshly unless she rules “correctly”, we are edging toward trial by media.

This is how judicial independence dies – not with a coup, but with a thousand small erosions. A veiled threat today becomes an expectation tomorrow, and a demand the day after.

Legacy Is for History, Not for Lobbying  

Justice Malaba’s record will be debated by scholars, lawyers, and historians for decades. That is healthy. But that debate belongs in law journals, in conferences, and in academic fora, not in articles published mid-litigation with the clear purpose of swaying an undecided case.

If Mtetwa believes CAB3 is unconstitutional, the place to argue that is in court, through written and oral submissions, subject to rebuttal and judicial scrutiny. The place is not a newspaper op-ed published while the judges are deliberating.

Defending the Courts Means Defending Restraint  

We can and should demand more from our judiciary. But we must also demand more from ourselves as members of the bar. The rule of law requires restraint from all sides. It requires that once a matter is sub judice, we allow the court to do its work without public arm-twisting.

Mtetwa’s article, however well-intentioned, sets a dangerous precedent. If it becomes acceptable for senior counsel to publicly lobby sitting judges through the press, then no judge will ever be free from the court of public opinion. And a judiciary that fears public opinion is a judiciary that ceases to be independent.

The new Chief Justice deserves the space to lead without being boxed in by public ultimatums about her predecessor’s legacy. Zimbabwe’s constitutional project deserves courts that are insulated from pressure, not pressured into delivering verdicts that please the loudest voices.

Let the judges judge. Let the public critique after judgment is delivered. Anything else is not constitutionalism – it is coercion.