{"id":131180,"date":"2019-04-15T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T11:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=131180"},"modified":"2019-04-11T10:00:09","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T09:00:09","slug":"zimbabwes-118000-outlay-on-judges-wigs-met-with-fury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/04\/zimbabwes-118000-outlay-on-judges-wigs-met-with-fury\/","title":{"rendered":"Zimbabwe’s \u00a3118,000 Outlay on Judges’ Wigs Met with Fury"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawyers say economically stricken country\u2019s purchase of horsehair wigs made in London evokes spirit of colonialism.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Supreme court judges look on as Emmerson Mnangagwa is sworn in as Zimbabwe\u2019s president at a ceremony in Harare in November 2017.
Photograph: Belal Khaled\/Nur Photo\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

5 Apr 2019 – <\/em>Lawyers in Zimbabwe have hit out at a government decision to spend thousands of pounds on wigs made in England for local judges, saying the tradition evokes a colonial past that should not exist in modern Zimbabwe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Zimbabwe\u2019s judicial services commission has placed an order for 64 wigs from Stanley Ley Legal Outfitters in London, at a cost of \u00a3118,400.<\/p>\n

Zimbabweans reacted with anger on social media, questioning the wisdom of the government\u2019s expenditure at a time when courtrooms are cramped and ill-equipped, the national economy is crumbling and, according to the World Food Programme<\/a>, 63% of the population live below the poverty line.<\/p>\n

Their sentiments were echoed by Dumisani Nkomo, chief executive of Bulawayo-based rights organisation Habakkuk Trust, who said: \u201cThese are misplaced priorities. We need to focus on bread and butter issues and avoid expenditure on unnecessary luxuries.\u201d<\/p>\n

After poor rains and erratic weather destroyed crops, almost 5.3 million people in Zimbabwe are facing food insecurity; in 2017, the country was ranked 108th out of the 119 included in the global hunger index. The government has previously pledged to cut expenditure in response to rising food prices<\/a> linked with the introduction of a new currency<\/a> in February.<\/p>\n

Lawyers in Harare said the government was wasting money on keeping a colonial tradition alive.<\/p>\n

Beatrice Mtetwa, a senior lawyer in the capital, said Zimbabwe\u2019s British colonial past remained embedded in its justice system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat surprises me in Zimbabwe is that we say everything against colonialism but we live more colonial than the colonisers themselves,\u201d Mtetwa said. \u201cA normal litigant would be intimidated to get into a courtroom full of ridiculously dressed judges. Why can we not dress decently? If we want to wear wigs , why can\u2019t we make them in our own way? Those wigs were meant for white judges \u2013 we look ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luke Malaba, Zimbabwe\u2019s chief justice, has reportedly insisted on the use of wigs during proceedings.<\/p>\n

Some of the wigs, made from horsehair, were delivered last week.<\/p>\n

Another top lawyer, Alec Muchadehama, said legal practitioners should drop the tradition and make courts more accessible to the general public.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we should move away from that culture to where judges look like an ordinary man and so that the courts look humane. We should simply believe that if a judge appears wearing a suit, it will not make them less of a judge,\u201d Muchadehama said.<\/p>\n

More: Doctors in Zimbabwe ‘sending patients away to die’ as drug shortages bite<\/a> <\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The use of wigs has been abandoned in South Africa, Kenya and several other Commonwealth countries.<\/p>\n

In Britain, judges have stopped wearing wigs when hearing civil and family cases, ending a centuries-old tradition.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my view, it\u2019s a bit unnecessary. From an ideological point of view, those wigs take us back to the colonial era. They make our courts inaccessible by the ordinary man. If the judicial services commission spends that money on rehabilitating dilapidated courts, that would make a lot of sense,\u201d said Doug Coltart, a human rights lawyer.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

5 Apr 2019 – Lawyers in Zimbabwe have hit out at a government decision to spend thousands of pounds on wigs made in England for local judges, saying the tradition evokes a colonial past that should not exist in modern Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans reacted with anger questioning the wisdom of the government\u2019s expenditure at a time when courtrooms are cramped and ill-equipped, the national economy is crumbling and, according to the World Food Programme, 63% of the population live below the poverty line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":131181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}