The docket was submitted by the Southern African Litigation Centre in March, with charges relating to a police raid on the MDC offices in Harare last year. MDC officials were detained for days and subjected to torture, including mock executions and electric shocks. The party’s president, Morgan Tsvangirai was also severely beaten and had to go to South Africa for medical treatment.
Representatives at an Institute for Security Studies discussion on civil society’s role in holding governments accountable, on Tuesday heard that if the NPA declined to investigate the matter, it would be accountable to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Max du Plessis, a South African law professor and a senior researcher at the ISS International Crime in Africa Programme told Newsreel on Thursday that because South Africa is party to the ICC statute, the country’s Director General of Justice and Constitutional Development has a duty to report the NPA to the ICC if it decides to not to investigate the charges. The ICC’s founding regulations require member countries to begin prosecutions as soon as a charge is laid.
Du Plessis explained that the NPA might also delay making a decision to investigate the docket, and that the Litigation Centre would need to take into consideration the legal options available to them, including initiating a court application to compel a decision from the NPA.
Du Plessis added that South Africa has the capacity and jurisdiction to prosecute alleged international criminals who are in the country for crimes committed elsewhere, according to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC in 1998. This responsibility is applicable in this case as the ZanuPF officials implicated in the Litigation Centre’s dossier have been known to travel to South Africa.
Lawyers from several organisations on Tuesday also backed a move to urge the UN Security Council to refer the Zimbabwe crisis to the ICC to investigate further crimes against humanity. Du Plessis explained that since last year’s attack on the MDC there have been significant developments in Zimbabwe and further allegations of serious human rights abuses. Du Plessis said that these incidents altogether may well form the basis for a referral to the ICC but that this referral is dependent on political sensitivities and conditions that pertain at the time of the request.
SW Radio Africa