MUSINGS OF CHIEF JUSTICE CHIVENGE
"All Rise!!! The Court is now in session. The Honourable Chief Justice Chivenge is presiding"
The are some commonly used legal symbols. The gavel is used for finality and to sound that justice has indeed been served and that the matter has been finalised. The balanced scales of justice symbolise the objective legal standard to show that the law is impartial and balanced and represent the balance between interests of... Continue Reading →
“Adultery and malicious dissertation are for the most part the only ultimate acts which indicate that a marriage has broken down. They are more often the effects of a marriage having broken down than the causes of breakdown”- South African Law Commission Report on Divorce In Ancient Rome adulterers were punished by the church or... Continue Reading →
Hair is a marker for various ethnic, religious, cultural, gender and racial indications. Hair has been used to denote religion, status, wealth, marital status and age. Hair and identity are inseparable. Nowadays, it is common for workplaces to have dress code, appearance and grooming policies. Most of these policies target black people. These policies tend... Continue Reading →
Zimbabwe has finally amended the Education Act through section 68C to provide that no pupil shall be excluded from school on the basis of pregnancy (and of course my people were beyond outraged). Prior to this express provision, there was no government law, regulation or policy requiring the expulsion of pregnant students. Only a moralistic... Continue Reading →
A certified copy is an endorsed duplicate of the primary document which informs independent third parties that the photocopy is a true copy of the original document. The copy is affixed with the stamp and signature of the commissioner of oaths. Certification of documents is important because it provides for the legal validity of documents.... Continue Reading →
Everyone has the constitutional right to dignity and the common law right to a good reputation. The constitutional right to dignity is wide enough to cover the right to a good reputation. Reputation is how third parties think of you objectively and dignity is how you feel about yourself subjectively. The same offending conduct may... Continue Reading →
The seat of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is in the Hague, Netherlands and is independent of the United Nations. It was created by the Rome Statute of 1998 which came into effect in 2002, thus it only has jurisdiction over crimes committed after July 20002. Unlike the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which resolves... Continue Reading →
A deeply embedded patriarchal practice assumes that a married woman must change her surname to that of her spouse. This was standard practice at the department of home affairs. Officials would automatically change the surname of the newlywed wife to that of her husband, sometimes even in violation of the wife’s express intention to keep... Continue Reading →
Article 5 of the Rome Statute grants the International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction over the most serious crimes of concern to the international community. These are genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the aggression. The Rome statute defines each of these crimes except for aggression. Genocide Genocide is the deliberate intentional and systematic destruction... Continue Reading →
‘International law condemns genocide, torture, hostage taking and crimes against humanity. These are not functions of a head of state’- Justice Lord Nicholls in the General Augusto Pinochet case Mengistu Haile Mariam was the chairman of the Derg which deposed Emperor Haile Selasie 1 in the 1974 coup d’etat. He ascended to power through the... Continue Reading →
MUSINGS OF CHIEF JUSTICE CHIVENGE 