Zimbabwe judges, magistrates strike for higher pay

Zimbabwe's judicial system has ground to a halt following a nationwide strike by magistrates, judges and prosecutors for higher wages, according to state radio Saturday.

It said magistrates courts all over the country were deserted Friday, except for a few police officers acting as prosecutors in minor cases, while criminal courts in the high courts in major centres were also unstaffed.

"No trials were taking place at all the courts countrywide yesterday," a bulletin said.

Hundreds of prisoners kept in cells in the courts, waited fruitlessly to appear.

The strike began on Tuesday when magistrates downed their gavels and by Friday they had been joined by prosecutors and other support staff.

A junior magistrate earns the equivalent of about 24 US dollars a month, while a high court judge is paid about 400 dollars.

The judicial system is stricken by long delays in hearings and prisoners can spend up to two years awaiting trial because of a critical shortage of magistrates, scores of whom have migrated to neighbouring countries to escape severe economic privation.

The country's teachers have been on strike on and off for the last month, also over wages. Following a pay hike, ordinary teachers are now paid the equivalent of 14 dollars per month, five times their former wages.

The government of President Robert Mugabe is effectively broke as the country's once-thriving economy crumbles with world record inflation of 8,000 percent, an increasingly worthless currency and agricultural and industrial sectors producing about 20 per cent of former output.

The collapse is described as the fastest economic decline outside of a war situation in the world in recent history. The International Monetary Fund and other major financial institutions blame Mugabe's reckless economic policies and refusal to undertake economic reform programmes.

Mugabe claims drought and Western governments' alleged imposition of economic sanctions are to blame.