AN article attributed to the very senior, respected and decorated human rights lawyer and advocate, Ms Beatrice Mtetwa calls for a firm but fair response. Chief Justice Luke Malaba’s legacy cannot be reduced to political disappointment, selective litigation outcomes, or the irritation of those who believe that constitutionalism means that courts must always decide against the State.

Credit is due where credit is due.

His story did not begin at the Constitutional Court. It began with sacrifice, interruption, discipline and recovery. Public profiles record that he served as a prosecutor from 1981 to 1984, as a magistrate from 1984 to 1994, then as a High Court judge from 1994 to 2001, a Judge of Appeal from 2001 to 2008, Deputy Chief Justice from 2008 to 2017, and Chief Justice from 2017. He also served for over a decade on the COMESA Court of Justice.

Before that judicial ascent, he had known the cost of nationalist conviction. His path was not one of colonial comfort. He belonged to that generation of young African intellectuals whose education, liberty and professional progression were disrupted by nationalist politics. His detention, restriction, political activism, and reported expulsion from the then University of Rhodesia alongside nationalist contemporaries such as the late Witness Mangwende are not incidental footnotes. They form part of the moral architecture of the man.

That history matters. A young man loses years to the motherland, is detained and restricted, is pushed off the expected academic track, and yet rises again — first through prosecutorial service, then through the magistracy, then through provincial and regional judicial administration, and finally to the highest judicial office in the Republic. That is not a small life. It is a national life.

His time as prosecutor and magistrate is especially important. A judge who has sat in the magistrates’ court understands the daily face of justice: the unrepresented accused, the rural litigant, the overburdened clerk, the police docket, the bail application, the remand prison, the maintenance dispute, the small civil claim, the practical indignities of distance and delay. His later obsession with decentralisation, court construction, administrative order and electronic case management was therefore not bureaucratic vanity. It came from lived institutional memory.

As magistrate in Masvingo, magistrate in charge of the province, and later regional magistrate, he saw justice from the ground up. By the time he entered the superior courts in 1994, he had already been formed by the practical realities of Zimbabwean justice. That distinguished him from the purely appellate mind. He knew that constitutionalism is not only written in elegant judgments. It is also built in courtrooms, registries, filing systems, provincial stations, disciplined judicial officers, and ordinary people being able to reach a court without ruinous travel costs.

Ms Mtetwa is correct in one respect: Luke Malaba was an outstanding jurist before he became Chief Justice. But she is wrong to suggest that the jurist disappeared upon his appointment.

His jurisprudence remained marked by rigour, textual discipline, institutional restraint and deep respect for legal finality. His dissent in Mawarire v Mugabe NO & Others remains celebrated because it showed courage and intellectual independence. But it was not an isolated flash. It was part of a long judicial method.

His judgments across the High Court, Supreme Court and Constitutional Court contributed significantly to Zimbabwean law. He wrote with unusual clarity on jurisdiction, constitutional procedure, criminal justice, labour relations, electoral disputes, separation of powers, finality of litigation and the limits of constitutional adjudication. His approach was never careless populism. It was structured, disciplined and often austere. That is not a defect. It is a judicial philosophy.

Much of the criticism directed at him mistakes judicial restraint for executive servility. That is an error. Constitutional courts are not political rescue missions. They are courts of law. They do not exist to validate every grievance merely because it is dressed in constitutional language. Indeed, apex courts across the Commonwealth regulate access carefully. Chief Justice Malaba’s insistence that constitutional litigation meet proper thresholds was not anti-constitutional. It was protective of the Constitutional Court’s institutional integrity.

His administrative legacy is equally formidable. Under his leadership, court decentralisation accelerated, new court infrastructure was established, and the Integrated Electronic Case Management System became a defining feature of judicial modernisation. Even his critics concede these reforms, but they understate their significance. A judiciary is not judged only by grand constitutional theory. It is also judged by whether citizens can physically and practically access justice.

Zimbabwe also became, under his leadership, a jurisdiction of regional interest. Judicial delegations from neighbouring jurisdictions increasingly looked to Zimbabwe’s court administration, digitalisation, training systems and infrastructural development as models for benchmarking. His role in regional judicial cooperation was not ceremonial. He served on the COMESA Court of Justice for more than a decade, and his profile within regional chief justices’ structures reflected Zimbabwe’s continuing relevance in African judicial dialogue.

The tribute paid to him at retirement was therefore not crocodile tears. It was not mere “wafa wanaka” praise-singing. It was recognition of a career of unusual length, sacrifice and achievement. One may disagree with particular judgments. One may criticise aspects of administration. One may even believe that different constitutional choices should have been made. But disagreement is not erasure.

Chief Justice Malaba’s life runs from nationalism to detention; from restriction to recovery; from prosecutor to magistrate; from provincial judicial administration to regional magistracy; from the High Court to the Supreme Court; from Deputy Chief Justice to Chief Justice; from national jurist to regional judicial actor. That arc is extraordinary.

When the full balance sheet is drawn, his contribution is immense: jurisprudential, administrative, institutional, regional and historical. He strengthened the judiciary’s infrastructure, disciplined its processes, expanded access to justice, contributed to regional judicial cooperation, and left a body of judgments that will continue to be studied.

No doubt, his profile places him among the finest Chief Justices Zimbabwe has had since the colonial era. Indeed, measured by breadth of experience, institutional reform, judicial longevity, regional influence and national sacrifice, there is a serious argument that his legacy surpasses that of Beadle CJ, Dumbutshena CJ, Gubbay CJ and others.

Credit is due. History should give it.

Advocate Lewis Uriri is a lawyer in Zimbabwe’s superior courts