Hungwe’s lawyer Selby Hwacha, in a letter to the MIC dated March 3, wrote: We request you to confirm urgently that the blanket ban on our client is ineffective and that there is no impediment to his practice as a journalist. The denial of means of sustenance is inherently urgent given especially that our client had been given to understand that the ban would be lifted.
Should we not hear from you by or before 10.00am on Wednesday 5th March 2008, we will have little choice other than take the matter to court urgently.The MIC, which ceased to exist in January following the promulgation of amendments to the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), notified Hungwe of the ban in a letter dated February 26, 2008.The one-year ban imposed on Hungwe – a former correspondent with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) – backdates to August 20, 2007, the date he lodged an appeal against an earlier decision banning him from working as a freelance journalist in Zimbabwe . The latest MIC ban will be in force until August 19, 2008, at least five months after the March 29 poll. Hungwe was seeking accreditation to work as the Harare correspondent for BBC News, which gave him a contract in 2006. International news networks BBC and CNN are both banned from Zimbabwe. Hungwe’s lawyer said the central thrust of the defence outline would be the fact that the MIC ceased to exist on January 11, 2008 when President Robert Mugabe signed the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Amendment Act No. 20 of 2007, scrapping the MIC.Therefore, the ban is null and void and has no legal force whatsoever because it has been instituted by a body which doesn’t exist at law, Hwacha said. It seems as if some members of the disbanded commission are hanging on to any excuse to continue this unjustified case against Hungwe.Responding to the ban, Hungwe said he was baffled the authorities wanted him to report through subterfuge in his own country. I have been patient with the MIC for more than a year now because I did not want to seen as being confrontational, but this latest development leaves me with no option but to seek recourse through the courts, Hungwe said.Press freedom groups and civic groups have roundly condemned the ban on Hungwe. The MIC was under the AIPPA amendments replaced with the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) which will be composed of nine members, set to be appointed by the President from a list of not fewer than 12 nominees submitted by the Parliamentary Committee on Standing Rules and Orders. The ZMC, which will be empowered with the accreditation of journalists, is still to be constituted.
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