ZEGU sets up legal aid clinic

Mashonaland Central Bureau

ZIMBABWE Ezekiel Guti University last week launched a European Union-International Commission of Jurists legal clinic project as part of its efforts to embrace innovation and industrialisation.

Speaking during the launch, Vice-Chancellor Professor Sunungurai Dominica Mutanga said the legal aid clinic was a special innovation hub for the Faculty of Law anchored on heritage-based philosophy and the values of unhu/ubuntu to develop a practical and proactive legal professional who is well rounded and able to provide solutions to the world’s challenges in an innovative manner.

She said recently the Faculty of Law received support from the Global Green Grants Foundation to organise a seminar on mining crimes and prosecution challenges in Mashonaland Central province, as well as partner Bindura Municipality in the national clean-up campaign programme launched by President Mnangagwa.

“The launch of the Legal Aid Clinic project comes in the wake of Doctrine 5.0 proposed by the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development, Professor Amon Murwira, which obliges all institutions of higher learning to move away from the traditional areas of teaching, research and university service to embrace innovation and industrialisation,” she said.

“To this end, the legal aid clinic in our Faculty of Law is a special innovation hub for the faculty anchored on heritage-based philosophy and the values of unhu/ubuntu. The idea is to develop a practical and proactive legal professional who is well rounded and able to provide solutions to the world’s challenges in an innovative manner.”

Speaking at the same occasion, the European Union Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Ambassador Timo Olkonnen, said improving access to justice for the needy was in line with the developmental cooperation with Zimbabwe outlined in the 11th National Indicative Programme signed between the and the Government in 2015.

He said the had three focal sectors of concentration, that is health, agrobased economic recovery governance and institutional building and it is under the Government and institutional building sector that 14 million euros was allocated to the support of the rule of law and access to justice for all programme.

Ambassador Olkonnen said the European Union would continue to assist families that were affected by Cyclone Idai.