In Zimbabwe, lawyers stride into courtrooms armed with briefcases and a commanding sense of authority. To many, they are symbols of intellect and hope, entrusted to resolve political stalemates and deliver justice to a nation rife with dysfunction. Yet, beneath this polished facade lies a troubling reality: the growing prominence of lawyers in Zimbabwe’s political and civic spheres often replaces substantive action with the hollow theatre of courtroom battles. Their rise reflects a misplaced faith in the law as a cure-all for Zimbabwe’s systemic challenges. Instead of driving progress, this overreliance on legalism has entrenched the very problems it seeks to solve.
Defining the role of lawyer-politicians in Zimbabwe is no small task. Their pervasive presence blurs the lines between legal practice, activism, and political ambition. Mike Murenzvi, a familiar voice to readers of this platform and a well-known analyst of Zimbabwean affairs, offers a clear description: “A lawyer-politician is a practicing lawyer who transitions into mainstream electoral politics—not to be confused with politicians who later pursue law degrees.” Interestingly, lawyer-politicians are today far more prominent in opposition parties than in the ruling ZANU-PF. This raises critical questions, in particular: Does their legal expertise serve the public good, or does it hinder the political process? Lawyer-politicians often prioritise legal arguments over political solutions, substituting courtrooms for public affairs and legal strategies for decisive governance. Politics demands the resolve to act beyond the constraints of legal frameworks.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, riding the Zimbabwe exceptionalism wagon, the prominence of lawyer-politicians is not unique to Zimbabwe. It mirrors a global pattern, where legal professionals dominate party leadership roles and often balance legal practice with political engagement. Studies reveal that lawyers are more likely than other professionals to enter politics to position themselves for electoral runs and to expand business contacts. While their expertise is celebrated, their dual roles frequently blur the lines between public service and personal gain. To be fair, constitutional law is the confluence of law and politics, a space where the tensions between representation and governance often play out. Yet, Zimbabwe’s legal elites seem to be swimming in confusion at this confluence, high on an exaggerated sense of self-importance. The problem isn’t just that lawyers dominate politics; it’s that many fail to adapt once they enter the arena.
In writing this piece, I draw on the insights of legal scholars who have examined these issues and acknowledge their work as crucial foundations for this discussion. I am not a legal expert but a concerned citizen offering some reflections. Any inconsistencies in legal arguments I draw on are entirely my own. This is not an attack on the judiciary or the legal profession, nor a critique of the rule of law. Rather, it is a call for accountability. I recognize the legal fraternity’s challenges since 1980—political interference, ministerial attacks, and compromised independence—and understand the risk of the misinterpretation that the tackling of this topic is politically motivated. My intention is not divisive but constructive, to urge collective reflection. While lawyer-politicians operate within a complex system, the judiciary bears some responsibility for the “courtroom performances.” The late Chief Justices Enoch Dumbutshena and Anthony Gubbay emphasised the judiciary’s vital role in developing a culture of rule of law and democracy, but as Welshman Ncube aptly noted, “lawyers and courts alone cannot be the custodians of human rights, justice, and democracy.”
From Liberation Courts to Legal Myopia: Zimbabwe’s Faith in Legalism
Zimbabwe’s faith in legalism is rooted in its colonial past. The country’s first Black lawyers—Herbert Chitepo, Edson Sithole, and Enoch Dumbutshena—initially sought justice through the colonial courts, believing the law could shield against tyranny. Chitepo defended Africans detained under oppressive laws. Sithole, a brilliant legal scholar, balanced advocacy with rigorous academic work. Dumbutshena championed equal rights and lobbied for international solidarity. Yet, the colonial judiciary was unyielding, designed to uphold the status quo. Courts, by their nature, are conservative institutions; they preserve the status quo more often than they disrupt it. These pioneers soon realized the limitations of the law in dismantling entrenched systems. Chitepo left the courts to lead the armed resistance; Sithole joined the nationalist movement; and Dumbutshena supported liberation efforts in exile. Their shifts were not rejections of the law but acknowledgments of its limitations. It is typical for governments to “abide by law in a qualified and calculated manner.” Authoritarian ones even go further, “purging courts and replacing them with pliant judges.” They are not naïve: they look for individuals who pass the professional and experience test even though these people might be part of a patronage system. Perhaps this professional and experience test is what blinds lawyer-politicians today, who continue to believe they might one day get favorable judgements in courts.
If Zimbabwe’s lawyer-politicians are unconvinced by the legacy of Hebert Chitepo and his peers, they need only look across the Limpopo. South Africa’s liberation icons—Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Joe Slovo, Albie Sachs, and Bram Fischer—understood both the power and limits of the law. They began their fight within its boundaries, using legal expertise to challenge apartheid’s legitimacy. Yet they soon realised the courts were not neutral arbiters of justice but instruments of oppression, subordinating law to state power. As Simon Stevens argues, these leaders recognised that law alone could not dismantle entrenched systems of power. When nonviolence failed to bring change, they made the painful decision to escalate their tactics, founding Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the ANC’s armed wing. During the Rivonia Trial, Mandela defended this move, explaining that when all peaceful avenues were closed, violence became an inevitable response to prevent uncontrolled chaos and terrorism.
This shift by Mandela and his compatriots was not impulsive but pragmatic and rooted in deep accountability to their constituents. Meredith Terretta’s work on anti-colonial lawyering sheds light on the dual pathways African lawyers pursued: “reforming colonial legal systems to expand rights or dismantling them entirely to achieve liberation.” When both strategies faltered, leaders like Bram Fischer and Albie Sachs demonstrated the courage to adapt. Fischer, an Afrikaner lawyer, defended Mandela and his comrades in the Rivonia Trial, preventing their execution while secretly leading the underground resistance. Mandela later praised Fischer for rejecting the privileges of Afrikaner nationalism to fight for freedom for all South Africans. Sachs endured arrests and harassment for his underground resistance, recognizing that true justice required action far beyond courtroom victories. These leaders understood that the law, while essential, could not stand alone in the fight for systemic change. Their willingness to evolve, even at great personal cost, was guided by what political scientists call “audience costs”—the risk of losing legitimacy if they failed to meet the expectations of the people they served.
Zimbabwe’s lawyer-politicians, like all political leaders, must grapple with audience costs. For South Africa’s lawyer-politicians, audience costs shaped their decisions. Simon Stevens recounts that ANC leaders like Govan Mbeki faced mounting pressure from the masses who doubted the effectiveness of nonviolence against apartheid regime. This grassroots pressure forced ANC leaders like Mandela and Walter Sisulu to reconsider their strategies. Even reluctant figures like Albert Luthuli eventually conceded, agreeing to the formation of MK while maintaining nonviolent activities under the Congress movement. This responsiveness to public pressure kept the ANC leadership accountable and aligned their actions with the demands of their base. Zimbabwe’s lawyer-politicians, by contrast, seem insulated from such pressures. With limited electoral competition and weak mechanisms of accountability, they face little incentive to innovate or adapt. Instead, they lean on repetitive litigation-heavy strategies, cycling through courtroom battles. By focusing solely on government missteps, they avoid scrutiny of their own failures, creating a political culture of stagnation and complacency. Courtroom theatrics have become a substitute for bold leadership and transformative strategies. This swashbuckling in the courts increasingly alienates the very people lawyer-politicians claim to represent.
Today’s lawyer-politicians would do well to heed these historical lessons. Since independence in 1980, the number of lawyers in Parliament has grown alongside a flourishing legal fraternity. At first glance, this might appear as progress. Yet, it is the opposite. Lawyers, trained to interpret statutes and defend clients, often falter in governance and politics. Their strategies lean heavily on procedural correctness and neglect other perspectives. Their tunnel vision prioritizes the legal over the political, the procedural over the practical, leading to a nation caught in a monotonous cycle of legalistic remedies that fail to address its deeper structural problems. As the late Nigerian Justice Chukwudifu Oputa observed, “We lawyers, inured in the status quo, worship at the altar of precedence and may not easily discern the reality of the changes taking place around us.” This paradox—reliance on legal expertise in the face of political stagnation—has fostered a leadership crisis and the establishment of lawyer-politicians who tinker with broken systems rather than pursue transformative solutions.
The Judiciary’s Complicity: Between Repression and Resistance
Zimbabwe’s judiciary, long plagued by political interference and compromised independence, has enabled this legal theatre. Welshman Ncube offers a sobering perspective: the law is a double-edged sword. While it can restrain the state and protect citizens’ rights, it can also serve as an instrument of repression. Under Rhodesian rule, the judiciary rigidly applied colonial laws, reinforcing state power at the expense of individual liberties. Post-independence, this framework persisted, with laws like the Law and Order Maintenance Act institutionalising human rights abuses. In democratic societies, law safeguards freedoms; in authoritarian regimes, it legitimises oppression. Zimbabwe’s judiciary remains trapped in this duality, complicit in both resistance and repression.
A pivotal moment in Zimbabwe’s electoral legal history unfolded in 1995, when Margaret Dongo, an independent opposition candidate, challenged her loss in Harare South. She made history by securing a landmark High Court judgment that nullified the election. Justice George Smith, a former Secretary to the Prime Minister and Cabinet, presided over the case. Dongo’s meticulous evidence left the judiciary with no option but to rule in her favor. This outcome rattled the regime, unprepared for such defiance, and set a precedent for electoral disputes flooding the courts. However, this flood has not always been constructive. Many cases are now brought with little basis, highlighting a troubling overreliance on legalism to resolve inherently political issues. This landmark judgment underscores an enduring dilemma for lawyer-politicians. The judiciary—tasked with adjudicating political and electoral disputes—often wishes such matters could be resolved elsewhere. Judges caught between law and politics must grapple with cases that test the very limits of their independence and authority. While the courts have occasionally delivered justice, they are not the panacea for Zimbabwe’s entrenched systemic challenges.
Professor Reginald Austin highlighted the legal profession’s failure at independence to challenge oppressive colonial structures. He noted that much of the profession had either been co-opted by or subdued into compliance with the colonial regime’s repressive legal framework, a failure that weakened the legal field’s ability to foster democratic values in the new nation. Today, Zimbabwe’s judiciary often functions as a pliable tool for those in power, covering authoritarian policies with a legitimizing veil. The late Chief Justices Enoch Dumbutshena and Anthony Gubbay offered profound critiques of this dynamic. Dumbutshena decried judges who aligned with authoritarian regimes and who dismissed human rights advocates as agitators who served as instruments of state control. He argued that judges must look beyond the letter of the law and adapt justice to societal realities. Gubbay, for his part, emphasized the delicate balance judges must maintain. While bound to uphold laws, they must also ensure those laws meet moral standards. He warned that judicial independence is eroded when judges face undue political or economic pressures, undermining their role as guardians of justice.
The Theatre of Courts: Legal Battles and Political Paralysis
Courtroom battles have become a hallmark of Zimbabwe’s political landscape. Lawyer-politicians drag minor disputes into the judiciary, turning courts into battlegrounds for partisan warfare. This overreliance on legal solutions stifles meaningful progress. Susan Booysen argues that “ZANU-PF has manipulated constitutionalism to entrench power, using legal frameworks to suppress opposition while maintaining a facade of democracy.” and lawyer-politicians often appear naïve or complicit, seeking justice in systems they know to be compromised. Susanne Verheul highlights that legal action in such contexts often becomes “symbolic resistance, a performance of citizenship” rather than a path to substantive change. This dynamic becomes even more perplexing when lawyer-politicians take cases before judges they accuse of being politically captured. At times, these court performances leave judges with no real options: they cannot enact laws or undo legislative incompetence. What, then, do we expect them to do? While we may disagree with those who refuse to “look out of the window,” as the late CJ Dumbutshena suggested, it is not inherently wrong for judges to follow the letter of the law. Yet, Zimbabwe’s judiciary also includes openly executive-oriented judges, prioritizing political interests over impartiality. If we concede that the rule of law in Zimbabwe has eroded and the judiciary is excessively aligned with the executive, we must confront an unsettling question: What does it say about us when we entrust “hungry lions” to adjudicate matters involving goats? Zimbabwe’s political life is littered with examples of this misguided reliance on law. Every dispute, no matter how mundane, seems destined for the courts, with lawyers turning to legal procedures to solve issues that require political compromise and collective action. Conflicts within political parties, for instance, often reflect nothing more than the natural tension of coalitions built on diverse interests. These should be resolved through honest dialogue or by accepting disagreements as inevitable. Instead, the feuding parties race to court, hoping judges will impose order where none can naturally exist. Lawyer-politicians who embrace these strategies risk reinforcing political stagnation rather than advancing democratic ideals.
Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle succeeded because it drew on diverse voices: activists, peasants, trade unionists, intellectuals, and lawyers. No single group dominated the movement. Today’s challenges demand a similar approach. Lawyer-politicians must transcend their role as “technicians of the law” and embrace broader visions of leadership. Effective politics requires creativity, pragmatism, and the courage to challenge broken systems. Citizens, too, must recognise that lasting change demands collective action beyond the courts. Zimbabwe must move beyond its fixation on lawyer-politicians or risk remaining trapped in a cycle of unrealized potential, lurching from one courtroom to the next without addressing the deeper needs of its people. The lesson is clear: the law is a powerful tool, but it cannot stand alone.
Tatenda is a Rhetorician and Zimbabwe political history enthusiast. He can be reached on his Twitter at @tatendamashanda. This article was first published here by the NewZwire.
