PRESS RELEASE | 01 January 2018
At the World Bar Conference of the International Council of Advocates and Barristers, (ICAB), held in Belfast on 30th June 2008, the Bars of Australia, England and Wales, Hong Kong. Ireland, Namibia, Northern Ireland, Scotland, South Africa and Zimbabwe, being the member Bars of ICAB, unanimously resolved:
To deplore the defiance by the Government of Zimbabwe of its human rights obligations under domestic and international law;
To call upon the secretariats of the Southern African Development Community, the African Union and the United Nations to initiate all steps necessary to procure the return of the rule of law to Zimbabwe and respect by the Government of Zimbabwe for the rule of law;
To condemn the detention without trial of our colleague Eric Matinenga, Member of Parliament of Zimbabwe and leader of the Harare Bar and the defiance of the High Court order for his release granted on an urgent basis by the High Court on 14th June 2008;
To call upon the members and secretariat of the Southern African Development Community to ensure that independent legal observers are permitted to be present in all courts in Zimbabwe throughout the trials of members of the legal profession who are being prosecuted for alleged offences;
To demand that the lawyers of Zimbabwe be permitted without intimidation or penalty to perform their duty to represent and defend their clients and ensure the entitlement of their clients to basic human rights;
To demand that the magistrates of Zimbabwe be permitted without intimidation to independently perform their duty's in accordance with the rule of law and to ensure the entitlement to basic human rights;
To demand that the Attorney General of Zimbabwe independently and impartially exercise his powers to uphold the rule of law.