High Court Orders South African Authorities To Investigate Crimes Against
Humanity Committed In Zimbabwe
News Release – Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC)
8 May 2012
JOHANNESBURG – In a landmark decision for local and international justice,
the North Gauteng High Court ruled this morning that the South African
authorities must investigate Zimbabwean officials, who are accused of
involvement in torture and crimes against humanity in Zimbabwe.
“This judgment will send a shiver down the spines of Zimbabwean officials
who believed that they would never be held to account for their crimes but
now face investigation by the South African authorities,” said Nicole Fritz,
Executive Director of the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC), which
brought the case along with the Zimbabwean Exiles Forum (ZEF).
In a very strong ruling, Judge Hans Fabricius said that the National
Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the South African Police Services (SAPS) had
acted unconstitutionally and unlawfully in not taking forward the original
investigation. His judgment also underlined in the strongest terms South
Africa’s obligations under international law.
“This decision is not just about Zimbabwe, it also sets a much broader
precedent by ruling that South African authorities have a duty to
investigate international crimes wherever they take place,” said Fritz. “It
is a major step forward for international criminal justice.”
In March 2012, SALC and ZEF argued in the High Court that the decision of
the NPA and SAPS not to investigate Zimbabwean officials linked to acts of
state-sanctioned torture should be set aside. Brought in terms of South
Africa’s International Criminal Court Act, which defines torture as a crime
against humanity, the applicants’ argued that the NPA and SAPS had failed to
take into account South Africa’s international and domestic law obligations
to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of international crimes regardless
of where they are committed or by whom.
The case highlighted South Africa’s duty to investigate crimes against
humanity, the sufficiency of the evidence presented by SALC to the NPA and
SAPS to trigger an investigation and how irrelevant considerations – such as
political concerns – improperly influenced the decision. The case also
exposed divisions within the NPA after Anton Ackermann, the head of the
Priority Crimes Litigation Unit that is responsible for the investigation
and prosecution of international crimes, stated in an affidavit that he
believed that an investigation should have been initiated and that he was
not satisfied with the manner in which SALC’s request was dealt with.
For more information and interviews contact:
Nicole Fritz, SALC Executive Director, , Cell +27 82 600
1028; [email protected]
Gabriel Shumba, ZEF Chairperson, Cell
Alan Wallis, SALC, Off , Cell ;
[email protected]
SALC promotes human rights and the rule of law in southern Africa through
litigation, advocacy and training. ZEF seeks to combat impunity and achieve
justice for human rights violations in Zimbabwe and to support Zimbabweans
in exile. Lawyers for Human Rights represented SALC and ZEF in this matter.
Ethel Maphiwa-Ndlovu
Office Manager
Southern Africa Litigation Centre
t: +27 (0) 11 587 5000
f: +27 (0) 11 587 5099
[email protected]
www.southernafricalitigationcentre.org
Court Orders S. African Prosecutors to Investigate Torture in Zimbabwe
May 08, 2012
Delia Robertson | Johannesburg
South Africa’s high court has ordered prosecutors to investigate Zimbabwean
officials who alleged committed torture and human rights abuses in the
run-up to Zimbabwe’s violent and disputed 2008 elections. The decision has
important practical, political and diplomatic implications for South Africa.
Judge Hans Fabricius told the National Prosecuting Authority to probe
accusations contained in a dossier of complaints compiled by the South
African Litigation Center and the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum. Nicole Fritz of
the Litigation Center says the complainants accuse 18 Zimbabweans of torture
and abuse.
“One is not talking about isolated incidents, it is not one crime,” she
said. “We are talking about a huge of number of individuals who can testify
to the same type of crime being committed against them. It is widespread
and systematic.”
South Africa is a signatory to the 1998 Rome Statute which brought about the
International Criminal Court, and passed implementing legislation in 2002.
Fritz says this enables South Africa to prosecute individuals of human
rights crimes committed elsewhere.
“That gives South African investigating and prosecuting authorities power to
investigate and prosecute international crimes, genocide crimes against
humanity, where the perpetrators of those crimes are present on South
African territory after having committed such crimes,” said Fritz.
Fritz says the complainants are members of the Movement for Democratic
Change, who were detained when the party’s headquarters was raided by
security officials of President Robert Mugabe’s government in 2007. She
says a number of the accused officials travel regularly to South Africa, for
both official and personal reasons and that the local authorities have
enough information to identify and arrest them should they again enter the
country.
The names of the accused have not been released and there was no immediate
comment from Zimbabwe’s government or Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party.
Fritz says that, while it is preferable to secure justice in the location in
which crimes occur, this is not possible in Zimbabwe because the rule of law
there has collapsed and there are no feasible or credible ways to ensure the
accused are prosecuted.
Fritz says South Africa played a leading role in negotiating the Rome
Statute. “South Africa was once a leader of the international criminal
justice project; it led at the Rome negotiations in securing an independent
court, its implementing legislation is a model the world over, for what
should be done, and the court basically said you need to live up to the
vision of those efforts at [the] Rome Statute and the vision that is
contained in implementing legislation,” she said.
South Africa has also become home to several individuals wanted in their own
countries for crimes against humanity, and Fritz says the ruling is a
warning to those who seek to use this country as a safe haven that they
cannot expect to enjoy impunity here.
Prosecuting authorities in South Africa are already burdened with a high
incidence of serious crime to investigate, and may find it difficult to
obtain the resources to investigate several hundred cases of Zimbabwean
torture.
Also, the ruling could further complicate South Africa’s role as mediator to
the parties in the shaky coalition government in Zimbabwe.