How do women in Zimbabwe access justice and how does the Zimbabwean justice delivery system meet their needs? These are the questions posed by a book representing the findings from the first stage of a three-year research project on the justice delivery system in Zimbabwe.
A study was conducted by the Zimbabwean team of the Women and Law in Southern Africa Research Trust (WLSA). Research was conducted in the Harare, Mahusekwa, Bingwa, Marondera, Mutare, Zimunya, Gweru, Bulawayo, Filabusi and Gwanda areas of Zimbabwe. The book focuses on women’s experience with ‘family’ law, and on how the justice delivery system deals with civil matters.
Many aspects of Zimbabwean women’s lives are dealt with in the private realm of the family and local community, rather than in the public domain of formal law. Zimbabwean women are, however, increasingly using the courts with full legal capacity and in their own right. As a consequence, in many areas of law (notably maintenance claims and deceased estates) demand outstrips legal resources.
- The largest number of disputes upon which the family is called to act, concern or involve spouses or conjugal partners.
- The legitimacy of local courts derives from their community base, and they have traditional or historical links with the people’s past.
- In urban areas where traditional structures are not available, alternatives are sought in the form of the police or the church.
- Individuals patch together a mixture of legal and social remedies and seek solutions to their problems wherever they may be found.
- Traditional courts tend to uphold patriarchal values and favour the legal entitlements of men.
- The relative economic disadvantage of women means that they often have to accept hearing of their cases at the local court. Transport costs to higher courts and the absence of legal aid are factors in this.
Problems arising from Zimbabwe’s pluralistic justice and legal system contribute to the inaccessibility of the justice delivery system. These problems include the conflict between official law and cultural practices, and the dismissal of customary values within the legal domain. A blending of the components of general law and customary law as they meet the needs of the people seems the logical way forward.
- The plural reality is that there are gaps in justice delivery, and also in the conceptualising of what is ‘just’ in a given context. Thus the idea of what is acceptable as formal justice is contested.
- Rather than trying to break down and minimise the influence of family and community spheres, a more feasible strategy would be to incorporate them into the justice patchwork.
- Embracing the reality of the role of traditional courts would bring these courts within the purview of the formal legal system.
- Giving formal recognition to the informal counselling mechanisms that exist in bodies like churches and welfare organisations could shape their input. It could, however, also lead to an officially sanctioned backlash against women.
- Educating women has spread awareness of their legal rights but the positive benefits of this are offset because the institutions of justice are severely under financed and under resourced.
