MISA says journalists can work in Zimbabwe without accreditation

By Tichaona Sibanda
26 June 2009

Journalists in Zimbabwe can work without accreditation until the Zimbabwe Media Commission is instituted, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa.

Earlier this month the High Court ordered the Media and Information Commission to stop accrediting and regulating the activities of journalists. The order confirmed the commissions status as a legally defunct body. The court also invalidated and ordered an immediate retraction of a directive by the information ministry, which had compelled local and international journalists to produce “valid” media commission accreditation cards to cover the COMESA summit in Victoria Falls.

But the Information Ministry defied the High Court order and barred the journalists, who had filed this urgent application challenging the legal status of the Tafataona Mahoso-led media commission.

Freelance journalists Stanley Gama, Valentine Maponga, Stanley Kwenda and Jealous Mawarire had contended that they were not obliged to register with “an illegal body” in order to cover COMESA.
Information and Publicity Minister Webster Shamu and his permanent secretary George Charamba, were listed as the first and second respondents in that case.

On Thursday Shamu and Charamba issued a statement saying they had no intention of defying the High Court order granted in favour of the four journalists. They claimed the delays in complying with the order were due to ‘financial constraints’.

‘In compliance with the said court order, we unreservedly and unconditionally retract and withdraw the contents of the said statement,’ reads part of the statement issued by Shamu and Charamba.

Tabani Moyo, an advocacy officer with MISA, said until such time as the new Zimbabwe Media Commission is in place, locally based journalists will only need to produce their business cards to cover any event.

‘The high court order is clear that the MIC is now defunct and that journalists cannot register with that body. In the interim, during this gap, journalists are allowed to work without accreditation,’ he said.

It remains to be seen if the Information Ministry will attempt to find some other way to block journalists from doing their jobs.