The President of Zimbabwe Emmerson Mnangagwa has appointed Justice Mary Zimba-Dube as the new Judge President,.
Zimba will be taking a position vacated by Justice George Chiweshe who was promoted to the Supreme Court bench.
In other appointments, the president also named lawyer Fortune Chimbaru to the position of Deputy Attorney General.
Chimbaru was the director of the Civil Division in the Attorney General’s office before her promotion.
Two senior judges who are more senior than Zimba were snubbed by the president.
Justice Garainesu Mawadze of the Masvingo High Court and Justice Martin Makonese of the Bulawayo High Court are the two Judges who missed out on the promotion.
In May Chiweshe was deployed to Supreme Court position after Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi appeared to accuse him of assigning hostile judges to cases in which the Zimbabwe government was being sued.
Ziyambi’s outburst came after three High Court judges ruled that the purported extension of Chief Justice Luke Malaba’s term past the retirement age of 70 was constitutionally void, before ordering that he had ceased to be a judge and Chief Justice on May 15.
The government appealed.
Some legal observers saw Chiweshe’s “promotion” as the government’s attempt to regain control of the High Court and secure favourable judgements.
