FIVE new magistrates were sworn in yesterday at the Harare Magistrates Court as part of an ongoing process to ease the workload on magistrates and improve the quality of judgments and sentences passed.
The five are
Messrs Alfred Dzinembiri, Moses Musiiwa , Ms Rumbidzai Kabasa, Ms Fungai
Dzimiri, and Ms Jesline Madaka.
Speaking after
the ceremony, chief magistrate Mr Munamato Mutevedzi emphasised the need for
quality in the execution of duties.
“We now have
the appropriate numbers in the courts countrywide. We will continue recruiting
so that we reduce heavy workload on magistrates. That on its own would then in
turn enable magistrates to improve the quality of their judgments, the quality
of their sentences and the overall quality of the product that comes out of the
magistrates courts,” Mr Mutevedzi said.
The chief magistrate
said the recruitment of magistrates followed an intense induction process.
“What we are
then doing is that, when we recruit magistrates there is a very intensive
induction process that they undergo.
“They actually
write examinations at the end of that induction and its quite some rigorous
process to the extent that when the five magistrates that were sworn in today
started this induction, they were 10 of them.
“The other two
were sworn-in earlier than the others because they had performed better. The
other two unfortunately fell by the wayside because they failed their
examinations and we decided that they were not good enough to become
magistrates at the moment. Maybe they will try next time with an improvement,
they stand that opportunity to then come in,” he said.
He added that
the other one was still going through the induction process.
“The numbers in
the courtrooms have grown reasonably well to our satisfaction and we believe
that with the support that we are getting from the secretariat and from
treasury, we will continue recruiting more magistrates. We have a class of
about 15 more that are coming in.
“They have just started their training and we hope by the end of their induction they would have done very well enough to enable us to swear them in,” he said. Herald
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