Church court puts Mugabe bishop on trial

An Anglican bishop who is a vocal supporter of President Robert Mugabe went on trial before an ecclesiastical court in Harare yesterday after an investigation into a range of charges including incitement to murder.

The Anglican Church of Central Africa took the unprecedented step of convening a trial under canon law at which the Bishop of Harare, Nolbert Kunonga, became the first Anglican priest on the continent in more than 100 years to face prosecution by his peers.

As well as the most serious charge of incitement to murder, he is accused of sinning against the church, its officials and its flock. He rejects the charges.

If found guilty, the controversial priest could be expelled from the church, and may even face civil charges if allegations of missing church funds are proved.

The 55-year-old clergyman arrived wearing a jewelled cross over his dark suit and crimson shirt at the hearing held at the Royal Harare Golf Club, in the shadow of Mr Mugabe's official residence.

Zimbabwe factfile 30 Jul 2002

The first of 11 charges against Bishop Kunonga is that he sought the assistance of Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organisation and militant "war veterans" to "incite or seek to incite" the murder of 10 prominent Anglicans, including priests and church wardens.

But the charge was temporarily withdrawn yesterday after Bishop Kunonga said he would not accept evidence by telephone from London where an Anglican priest, Father James Mukonga, who fled Zimbabwe last year, was waiting to testify by video link to support his affidavit.

Jeremy Lewis, for the prosecution, told the court: "We withdraw without prejudice but are free to lay a future complaint in another jurisdiction."

After proceedings were adjourned until tomorrow, Mr Lewis said that Father Mukonga could give evidence in person in Malawi.

Other charges faced by Bishop Kunonga are that he tore up the infrastructure of the Harare diocese by sacking 19 priests or church officials, dismissed heads of most of the church's institutions and banned the choir from singing in Harare's Anglican cathedral.

He is also accused of banning a predecessor, Bishop Peter Hatendi, from participating in services; of abusing the use of church property including vehicles and funds; falsifying minutes of church meetings; and of having removed and "disposed of memorabilia, plaques, tablets from the cathedral", some of historical interest.

Bishop Kunonga's appointment five years ago was accompanied by accusations that he bent canon law to become Zimbabwe's senior Anglican.

He went on to enrage his flock by preaching support for the lawlessness of the Mugabe regime and endorsed the seizure of white-owned farms.

He also preached "racial hatred" according to a group of parishioners, mostly black, who have gathered in Harare to give evidence against him.

Bishop Kunonga, unlike most senior Zimbabwean churchmen, has refused to criticise Mr Mugabe's human rights abuses and became the first priest openly to help himself to two of Zimbabwe's best equipped white-owned farms.

By Peta Thornycroft in Harare12:01AM BST 24 Aug 2005

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/1496871/Church-court-puts-Mugabe-bishop-on-trial.html

Exercises:

1. Translate the following words and phrases:

the ecclesiastical court; woodworm; malevolent day; non-appearance; this court has no power and jurisdiction; traitors; the fish of the sea; the work was diabolically inspired.

2. Explain your point of view about the fairness of the ecclesiastical court. Is it true that animals should serve man or everyone has equal rights? Why?

3. Make a rendering of this excerpt from Chapter 3 “The wars of religion”.

 Source; the Archives Municipales de Besançêon. The following case, hitherto unpublished, is of particular interest to legal historians in that the procureur pour les insectes was the distinguished jurist Bartholomé Chassenée (also Chassanée and Chasseneux), later first president of the Parlement de Provence. Born in 1480, Chassenée made his name before the ecclesiastical court of Autun defending rats which had been charged with feloniously destroying a crop of barley. The following documents, from the opening ptition des habitans to the final judgment of the court, do not represent the entire proceedings - for instance, the testimony of witnesses, who might be anything from local peasants to distinguished experts on the behavioural patterns of the defendants, has not been recorded - but the legal submissions embody and often specifically refer to the evidence, and thus there is nothing absent from the essential structure and argument of the case. As was normal at the time, the pleas and the conclusions du procureur épiscopal were made in French, while the sentence of the court was solemnly delivered in Latin.

The manuscript is continuous and all in the same hand. Thus we are not dealing with the original submissions as penned by each lawyer's clerk, but with the work of a third party, perhaps an official of the court, who may have omitted sections of the pleas. Comparison with the contents of boîtes 371-379 suggests that the case as it exists in this form was perhaps part of a set of exemplary or typical proceedings used in the training of jurists. This conjecture is supported by the fact that only Chassenée among the participants is identified by name, as if students were being directed to examine the instructive dexterity of a distinguished defence counsel, regardless of the result of the case. The handwriting belongs to the first half of the sixteenth century, so that if, as may be, the document is a copy of someone else's version of the trial, it is still contemporary. I have done my best to render the sometimes extravagant style of pleading - especially of the unnamed procureur des habitans - into a comparable English.