Ellen Sikhala, wife to incarcerated member of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) and Zengeza West legislator Job Sikhala says the country’s judiciary system has become a shame to the world for failing to efficiently execute its duties.
Her husband has been in pre-trial detention for over 300 days on allegations of inciting public violence in the wake of slain opposition activist Moreblessing Ali’s funeral in June last year.
Speaking during an event hosted by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum in collaboration with regional human rights advocacy group Southern Defenders, Ellen said Sikhala’s children had become impatient with the judicial processes which were taking time to finalize.
“It is stressful especially during the court days, you will see that our judiciary is a shame. It is a shame to the nation, to the world because it is not doing what it is supposed to be do,” she said.
“It is confusing to spend the whole day roaming around the courts with nothing materializing or materialistic happening, just like today (yesterday) we have been at court since morning but nothing to please.
“I will just be dilly dallying around the courts and at the end they postpone the matters each and every time. So as a family, we just hope that the Lord will keep him safe for us in the horrible cells that he is living in. It is a place that he is not supposed to be, but our hands are tied even for the kids they are becoming impatient now. Sometimes its hard to explain things to them,” said Ellen before breaking down.
During Sikhala’s detention, Ellen has had to face the courts after she was convicted of reckless driving in December last year and was fined ZWL$30 000 and banned from driving for six months.
Also in attendance was Southern Defenders deputy chairperson Tanele Maseko whose husband Thulani Maseko was assassinated early this year in one of Eswatini’s darkest moments on human rights defenders.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum and the Southern Defenders launched two publications code named Justice Delayed is Justice Denied and the Southern Africa Model Law on the Protection and Promotion of the work of Human Rights Defenders.
