Constitutionalism key in improving justice delivery system
Story by Fungai Jachi, Courts Reporter
THE need for stakeholders in the justice delivery system to uphold constitutionalism for the interest of justice took centre stage during the official opening of the 2024 Legal Year in Harare this Monday.
The tone for this year’s legal year has been set with Chief Justice Malaba speaking on the importance of upholding the constitution. He implored the judiciary and stakeholders in the justice delivery system to ensure they play a role in entrenching constitutionalism.
“Everyone has a role to play in the entrenchment of constitutionalism by obeying the commands of the constitution. The pursuit of constitutionalism is a call on all people to seek to always conform to the constitutional order. The attainment of a democratic society is based on openness, fairness, equality and justice depends largely on the willingness of big state and private actors,” he said.
The Chief Justice is confident that the Judicial Service Commission will continue on the developmental trajectory, with more courts set to be constructed, especially in townships and rural communities.
He added, “We will continue to construct more courts as our decentralisation agenda continues. Several new projects are on the cards.”
The Chief Justice noted the improvement in the handling of matters in the courts as all courts, except for the Labour Court, managed to reduce their backlogs with huge margins.
“All the courts did well as they managed to clear their backlogs. The labour court was, however, the only court that failed to do so,” he reiterated.
A major takeaway from the Chief Justice’s speech is the need for everyone to obey the express commands of the constitution when dealing the matters before the courts.
