The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (African Commission), the African Union’s human rights body, found the Government of Zimbabwe in violation of Articles I and IV of the African Charter concerning extra-judicial killings.
The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, which submitted the complaint, welcomes the decision.
As ruled by the African Commission, the Government of Zimbabwe violated Articles I and IV of the African Charter which call for protecting citizens from extra-judicial killings and affording redress to the bereaved families, respectively. More specifically, the African Commission recommended that the Government of Zimbabwe
“…undertake law reform to bring domestic laws on compensation in cases of wrongful killings into conformity with the African Charter and other international standards, especially in respect to effective and satisfactory compensation…and to pay compensatory damages to the legal heirs and next of kin of the four deceased persons.”
Following the Forum’s complaint to the Commission over these wrongful killings, the decision was adopted in May 2012 and endorsed by the AU Executive Council in January 2013. The four victims–Batanai Hadzizi, Never Chitsenga, Beaven Kazingachire and Lameck Chemvura–were killed on separate occasions between January and November 2001 at the hands of state security agents.
Read the Forum’s full report of the African Commission’s decision.