Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights Writes

Our anti-impunity litigation aimed at deterring police brutality and heavy-handedness continue to yield positive results as government Zimbabwe Repiblic Police are paying dearly for some misdemeanors with Justice Mushore ordering them to pay US$16 788.00 to Loveness Chiriseri a Chitungwiza resident

Chiriseri, who was a passenger in a private vehicle intending to commute to Harare from Chitungwiza, was a victim of an indiscriminate police shooting incident in August 2018 at a police check point along Seke road.

With the assistance of Fiona Iliff of ZLHRLawyers, Chiriseri sued for damages for injuries sustained as a result of the shooting, medical expenses, pain & suffering, nervous shock & loss of amenities to life.

In court, Iliff argued that the police officer who shot Chiriseri applied excessive force & that the officer’s constitutional right was exercised in an overzealous and questionable manner.

In her extensive ruling, Justice Mushore noted that Chiriseri posed no danger to the public or to internal security of the country or to law & order and that she was an unarmed non-threatening passenger in a vehicle.

The police officer, Justice Mushore said, had no basis to fire a weapon at a civilian target & if it was his intention to stop the driver of the vehicle in which Chiriseri was travelling in from proceeding through a roadblock, he ought to have fired a warning shot into the air.

With Zim recording cases of police brutality, heavy-handedness by state and other quasi-state actors, ZLHR has adopted as one of its strategies, a policy of bringing anti-impunity civil proceedings against perpetrators wherever possible to deter and discourage such violations.