‘Rebels’ and ‘Good Boys’: Patronage, Intimidation and Resistance in Zimbabwe's Attorney General's Office after 2000

Abstract

In post-2000 Zimbabwe, the rule of law was undermined as ZANU(PF) dismissed the importance of judicial independence in order to promote its land reform programme. The assumptions of disorder and a lack of institutional strength that mark understandings of the postcolonial African state may thus appear appropriate to the analysis of the negotiation of power and authority within the Zimbabwean state. A focus on a politics of disorder does not, however, further our insights into the practical and conceptual place of law and judicial institutions in Zimbabwe. Examining the dynamics within one state institution, the Attorney General's office, I explore the circumstances under which, and the manner in which, the office was politicised, and how those working in or with the office made sense of this process. Officials invoked two registers, one of corruption and politicisation and another of professionalism and ‘justice’, to explain their experiences with, and expectations of, the Attorney General's office. These views highlight the centrality of contestations over the nature of the judiciary in the imagination of Zimbabwe's state by civil servants, rather than simply demonstrating a weakened, disordered, or hollowed-out state institution.