In arriving at judgements, it is important that courts do not cultivate the unsavoury impression that they are hell-bent on taking us back to the Court of Chancery in Dickens' Bleak House.
The Court of Chancery was entrusted with the responsibility for making fair and reasonable judgements but it was not fulfilling its function. The word chancery itself is a boxing term. If you are in-chancery it means your head is held in someone's hand and he punches you. If one gets into Chancery Court, one is thumped, one is hammered. That was the feeling I got after reading the decision of Zimbabwe's Constitutional Court, which ordered President Mugabe to hold elections by 31 July, 2013.
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