EDITORIAL COMMENT:There must be zero tolerance for mob justice

28 Apr, 2017 - 00:04 0 Views

The ManicaPost

The ghastly incident which occurred in Westlea recently where an angry mob decided to take the law into its own hands by beating up a man who later died at Mutare Provincial Hospital is unacceptable and a dangerous way of curbing crime.We are in the 21st century and Zimbabwe is not a lawless State where people driven by mere emotion should turn against fellow citizens and administer summary executions, and get away with it.

With our judicial system and the Zimbabwe Republic Police fully functional, mob justice should not be tolerated as being a remedy to solve crime in society.

Elsewhere in this issue, we carry a story in which a 21-year-old man from Chikanga was caught red-handed stealing from a house in Mutare’s Westlea suburb.

Alarm was raised and a crowd quickly arrived. Instant justice was administered and the suspect, who was badly assaulted later died in hospital.

There was no justification for ruthless citizens of Westlea suburb, which incidentally is not far from Mutare Central Police Station, to be taking the law into their own hands, instead of simply reporting suspects to the law enforcers.

Some members of the community argue that they resort to this horrific form of solution because of ineffective policing.

And many accuse the judicial process as being easily manipulated by criminals being let off with just a pat on the wrist.

Hence, they say that vigilantism is the last resort of the unprotected.

But it is the business of the police, which has the mandate of preventing, investigating and detecting crime and ensuring that there is maintenance of law and order, to act on all incidents where the law has been broken.

And the police have made it clear that they are now pursuing those who took the law into their own hands and bring them to justice.

Ignoring mob justice incidents is a recipe for future re-occurrence.

If unchecked, continuation of mob justice will gradually begin to undermine the country’s justice institutions and put our nation at a threat of falling into lawlessness where people arbitrarily take the law into their own hands.

Mob justice, which is barbarism at its worst, never serves justice at all.

The degree of violence inflicted by mobs before subjecting the victims or suspects to fair trial cannot be called justice.

Mob justice, by its very nature, is a criminal activity, which should not be tolerated.

The unfair character of a mob’s action is that it takes place in the absence of a conventional form of fair trial in which the accused is given the right to defend themselves.

Rather under such rush circumstances the accused is brutally punished and possibly sentenced to death as what happened in Westlea.

As a nation which achieved its independence 37 years ago, we need to protect our justice system by saying no to the jungle law which wears many ugly faces.

There is need for our police to maintain law and order while our courts should be active so that they are seen as the respected temples of justice.

It will be a travesty of justice to tolerate daylight lawlessness in the form of mob justice and this mode of behaviour should not be allowed to become a solution to solving crime in society.

We now live in a democratic society founded on the rule of law and the values of human dignity and the advancement of human rights and freedoms.

Mob justice is in direct opposition to this.

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