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How can you measure a law school’s worth, aside from the employment statistics and bar passage rates of its graduates? Another telling sign of its success — or lack thereof — may be its acceptance rate. Generally speaking, law schools with low acceptance rates masterfully weathered the storm over the past decade, keeping their standards high during a time when applications plummeted and entering students’ qualifications sank, while law schools with high acceptance rates fared quite poorly, admitting almost anyone who applied in an effort to keep the lights on.

But which law schools had the lowest acceptance rates? Thanks to the Short List blog of U.S. News, there’s a ranking for that. According to the Short List, the average acceptance rate in fall 2019 was 45 percent. Among the schools with the lowest acceptance rates, the average rate was much, much lower, at 14.5 percent. As you may have guessed, the law schools with the lowest acceptance rates are some of the usual suspects, the elite schools found at the tippy top of the U.S. News rankings.

SCHOOL (NAME) (STATE)		FULL-TIME AND PART-TIME APPLICANTS (FALL 2019)		FULL-TIME AND PART-TIME ACCEPTANCES (FALL 2019)		ACCEPTANCE RATE		U.S. NEWS RANK
Yale University (CT)		3,198		263		8.2%		1
Stanford University (CA)		3,908		380		9.7%		2
Harvard University (MA)		7,321		916		12.5%		3
University of Pennsylvania (Carey)		6,483		941		14.5%		7
University of Virginia		5,645		829		14.7%		8
Columbia University		7,193		1,141		15.9%		4 (tie)
University of Michigan—Ann Arbor		5,629		936		16.6%		9 (tie)
University of Texas—Austin		5,803		1,017		17.5%		16
University of Southern California (Gould)		5,648		999		17.7%		18 (tie)
Northwestern University (Pritzker)		5,441		980		18.0%		9 (tie)

Eight of the 10 law schools with the lowest acceptance rates fall within the top 10 of the most recent U.S. News rankings, with UT-Austin (#16) and USC (#18) sneaking in to complete the list. Top 10 schools that didn’t make the cut here were NYU and Berkeley, with acceptance rates of 21.60 percent and 19.68 percent, respectively.

Where does your law school stand when it comes to its acceptance rate? Check out your school’s most recent Standard 509 Report to find out.

10 Law Schools That Are Hardest to Get Into [Short List / U.S. News]

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. Monique Burt Williams is the CEO of Cadence Counsel, where she helps corporations and other organizations diversify their in-house legal divisions as they strive to reflect a global economy.

I was five years old when I first felt the weight of being black in this country.

I was at day care, playing happily with a group of children at a water table. If I close my eyes, I can still hear our screeches as we gleefully plunked toys into the pool. At some point, I mistakenly dropped a toy tugboat onto the ground. A boy glared at me, snatched up the tugboat, hurled it angrily back into the water and yelled, “You’re black!”

There was a venom in his tone that was foreign to me, and I stood there frozen, not quite understanding what his words or this interaction really meant. All that registered in that moment was the negativity that dripped from his accusatory description of me. I could tell that everyone else was contemplating a similar thought because they had all stopped playing to look at me, waiting for my reaction.

Another little girl jumped to my defense and screamed, “No, she’s not black! That’s probably just dirt. We can wash it off.” She proceeded to pat tiny handfuls of water onto my face in her innocent attempt to smear that troublesome melanin away from my skin. Her efforts were futile, and disappointment washed over the group. I remember exactly how it felt when I blinked and hot tears rushed down my cheeks and into the cool droplets of water from the girl’s failed science experiment.

The group’s silent, collective stare made me somehow feel responsible for the moment and therefore obligated to fix it. I felt like it was my responsibility to lighten the mood, or offer up some sort of excuse, or distraction, or smile, or explanation, or apology for my blackness, having interrupted and dispelled the lightness of the occasion.

Finally, mercifully, a teacher walked over to inform us that it was time for lunch, and everyone just dispersed. That was it. The moment had passed. The teacher never saw or acknowledged my tears, and everyone simply went on with their day.

Those same children would go on to play with me year after year, but I carried a soul-soaked heaviness from that day that would rear its familiar head, in some way or another, for the rest of my life. It was the first time that I had experienced the burden of “otherness” – a panicked, gloomy pit in my stomach, like the feeling you get when the phone rings in the middle of the night or that nauseating tug at your insides as you prepare to attend a funeral.

Another funeral.

After days of protests and riots following the senseless death of George Floyd, the nation has witnessed yet another funeral for an unarmed black man who was murdered at the hands of law enforcement officials. Once again, racism has wreaked utter and complete havoc on our already taxed emotional and societal sensibilities, forcing some of us into the recesses of our minds and others onto the pandemic-ridden streets of our cities in search of an answer to that singularly unifying question: what, if anything, can be done in the wake of this chaotic pattern of destruction?

If I close my eyes, I can call up that scene from when I was five years old. I exchange the water table for a conference room. I swap out the kids for co-workers. I turn the toys into projects, and I replace the burden of “otherness” with the opportunity to effectuate real change.

When someone’s differences are called out and used against them if they happen to drop the ball, the aggressor must be pulled aside and addressed accordingly. When someone genuinely tries to defend and stand with the oppressed, but fails to do or say the perfect thing at exactly the right moment, they should be quietly counseled as to what might be more helpful in the future, not openly criticized and alienated. When someone takes on the unwarranted responsibility of smiling through the struggle, discreetly offer them a tissue and the time they need in order to recharge.

The perception of “other” begins with those in positions of power. Those in positions of power are overwhelmingly the owners of privilege. And when the owners of privilege fail to use that power toward meaningful change, they waste an opportunity to increase the widespread perception of the value of others. That is what we are missing: respect for the value of “otherness.”

That is why it is so universally dangerous to neglect the prioritization of a diverse workforce by resting in the comfort of working with homogenous teams. It perpetuates the idea that if you are “other,” you are of lesser value. It matters who you hire. It matters that your leadership teams reflect the customers that you serve. It matters what messages you send to your employees and to their families and to the world about your values and the ways in which you value their lives.

I stand with those CEOs who have committed to reinforce their diversity and inclusion efforts. I stand with the families of those who have lost their lives to senseless acts of hatred and bigotry. I stand with those who seek equality for all. And I stand with every five-year-old at every water table who has ever felt the weight of being black in this country. We will do better by you. We will.

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Lateral Link is one of the top-rated international legal recruiting firms. With over 14 offices world-wide, Lateral Link specializes in placing attorneys at the most prestigious law firms and companies in the world. Managed by former practicing attorneys from top law schools, Lateral Link has a tradition of hiring lawyers to execute the lateral leaps of practicing attorneys. Click here to find out more about us.

Being neck deep in the Trump “Russiagate” debacle must really do a number on the brain. Based on what we know of the events, it seems like a Foucault’s Pendulum of conspiracy theory upon a conspiracy theory answered with a conspiracy theory: Trump and his people aren’t really deep cover Putin agents because all sides of that idea are far too stupid to have realized that it was an option, but; no, the White House wasn’t “entrapped” or “corruptly prosecuted” when it decided to interfere with the Russia investigation when they realized it might paint them as the dim-witted enablers that they were, and; Hunter Biden… yeah Hunter Biden somehow. And John Dowd planted himself in the center of all of it, plugging himself directly into the wingnut mainframe like some sort of QAnon Neo.

And now we have Dowd’s unhinged ramblings about how the wave of protests against police brutality — the ones we’ve all watched on television if not personally participated in — simply don’t exist. It’s all an illluuuusssssion, man!

Donald Trump, who bashed Dowd when the latter walked away from the Mueller investigation, had a miraculous change of heart about his former lawyer after Dowd prepared a response to the critique General Jim Mattis leveled of the administration. Trump sent it around Twitter last night and this is some grade A, “get grandpa away from the typewriter” material. At least it wasn’t in Comic Sans this time.

As a legal writing exercise, this should be a strong advertisement for any future client to seek other counsel.

Jim:
I slept on your statement and woke up appalled and upset, You lost me. Never dreamed you would let a bunch of hack politicians use your good name and reputation-earned with the blood and guts of young Marines
You did what you said you would – engage in this discourse.
Marines keep their word.

Dowd, a mere company-grade officer in the Marines Judge Advocate Division, is here to question the military bona fides of a guy called “The Warrior Monk” by everyone who’s ever hung around him. This should go swimmingly. Hey John, we’ll wake you when it’s time to prosecute someone for drunk driving on the base and let the General here talk about policy.

What is it with these junior officers anyway? Tom Cotton’s New York Times editorial: “Tiananmen Square… Maybe They Should Have Run Over That Guy” is another instance of a low-level officer preaching expertise in a field that he declined to take the time and effort to master.

Now we get to the money line:

The phony protesters near Lafayette park were not peaceful and are not real.

Not real! It’s the “no collusion!” of our time.

In fairness, Dowd isn’t saying that there aren’t people in the streets, he’s saying that all of these hundreds of thousands of people turning out every night are the silent Antifa conspirators that Q is telling us about or some other delusion.

They are terrorists using idle hate filled students to burn and destroy. They were abusing and disrespecting the police when the police were preparing the area for the
1900 curfew.

Except… we have video of the area and know that none of this is true. Barr just walked down there and ordered the clearing of the park. If there were folks out there trying to burn and destroy you’d think they’d have done a better job of accomplishing it by now. The Minneapolis police precinct building is about the only thing anyone’s burned down and 54 percent of Americans think that was justified. Honestly, which is it: are the students coddled snowflakes or efficiently organized vicious saboteurs? It’s getting difficult for Bari Weiss to get her code words straight.

President Trump has done more to help our minority brothers and sisters in three years than anyone in the last fifty. Ask the black pastors. Ask the leaders of the black colleges and universities. He got them funded.

I don’t think Dowd wants to know where the majority of those folks are going. Maybe he should have just said, “Martin Luther King Jr would have said…” and been done with it.

I understand, you had to stick to the assigned narrative which did not include three years of corrupt investigations and evidence to destroy this President, his office, and his lawful free election.

You know, Mattis was in that office most of the time, right?

At this point, Dowd just goes off in a number of directions, praising Trump for prison reform before decrying the unlawful release of “hoodlums.” Does MS-13 come up? Oh, you bet it does!

Before it’s all said and done, Captain Dowd rips General Mattis as a failure as a general, a conclusion that, if true, would mean Trump knowingly placed a failure in the Defense Secretary role, which would seem more damning if any sort of logical throughline existed in any of this.

Meanwhile Ty Cobb’s jamming out at scum punk shows and making a good living working children’s parties as a Wilford Brimley impersonator. It seems like he’s found a way to let go of all the crazy and just live. Hopefully Dowd can find a path to that sort of peace too.

Maybe they can get together for lunch and talk about it.

Read the whole letter on the next page if you’re looking for more fun.

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

Consulting giant PwC developed a contact-tracing app that would track if employees had been in close contact with each other while in the office, alerting them if they might have been exposed to Covid-19. While the company is testing the system internally, it plans to offer it to its clients.

Other companies are turning to screening tools, such as Microsoft and UnitedHealth Group, which are rolling out an app that would require employees to answer a series of questions about symptoms before they enter the office.

It might sounds a bit like a scene out of 1984, but the use of these tools is a reality as companies try to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 as workplaces reopen. Even in the midst of a pandemic, employers must be cautious not to encroach on personal health data that would be protected under privacy and employment laws, attorneys said.

For example, companies can require employees to participate in a temperature check when they come into work. But they can’t ask workers about their medical history or any underlying conditions while trying to determine who might be at a higher risk from Covid-19.

“While (temperature) checks are considered to be medical examinations, they do not violate ADA rules on medical inquiries because in the pandemic environment they are considered consistent with business necessity.  You still have to abide by ADA requirements with respect to the confidentiality of medical information and retain records of temperature checks in confidential medical files kept separate from the normal personnel file,” Richard Rainey, a labor and employment partner with Womble Bond Dickinson, wrote in an email.

In some cases, health systems are offering services to help companies monitor and contact trace employees. For example, New Orleans-based Ochsner Health System began offering local companies health screenings, temperature checks and virtual appointments.

A startup launched within Renton, Washington-based Providence St. Joseph Health, Ayin Health Solutions also began offering screening tools for employers. The company said it would offer employee health screenings, Covid-19 testing, risk-stratification and contact tracing tools.

“It’s not simply enough to test and just reopen the door to reentry. It’s an ongoing process,” said Dr. Rhonda Medows, CEO of Ayin Health Solutions and president of population health at Providence St. Joseph. “(Workers) are all part of the frontline. They haven’t all gotten the protections they’ve needed. We’d like to go in and help. Everything from social distancing and masks, to also helping them assess employee populations.”

Risk stratification requirements

For the latter, Ayin Health said the employer would receive aggregated, de-identified data on risk-stratified employee cohorts. They would not receive information on an individual’s health conditions or medical history.

From there, the idea is that companies would be able to offer reasonable accommodations, such as working from home, a separate facility, or alternating work days.

From a legal perspective, employers can use this information to make the work environment safer for employees, but they cannot force them out of the workplace for their own protection. Companies also cannot ask employees if they have underlying medical conditions that might make them vulnerable to Covid-19.

If an employee brings up a health concern, their employer must have a good faith dialogue to see if accommodations can be made that would allow them to safely perform their job.

“In the pandemic setting this could be allowing telework if possible, arranging work stations in a way to allow for social distancing, or the use of personal protective equipment,” Rainey wrote. “Allowing the employee to take leave would also be a possible accommodation in some cases.”

Location data

Like PwC, Ayin is also offering a location-based tool that can tell when employees have come within proximity of each other and can send screening questions for Covid-19 symptoms. It also includes a wearable that can check their temperature for fever. The device would only be used in a workplace setting.

“It not only helps us identify them to get them tested or get them care, but it also helps us know if we need to do contact tracing,” Medows said.

When it comes to contact tracing and location monitoring, companies should be cautious in the questions they ask and how much data they collect, said Libbie Canter, a partner with Covington and Burling who specializes in privacy and data security.

“Companies need to think about not collecting more data than they reasonably need. Do you need precise geolocation? Is proximity sufficient?” she said.

When it comes to determining if an employee might have been exposed to Covid-19 outside of the workplace, companies should be extra cautious. For example, while an employee might share that they had traveled recently, they might also share that they had gone to a place of worship, which is protected.

Canter said companies should think carefully about who has access to  this data, when it will be deleted, and what notice or consent they will provide to employees.

“I do think there are some circumstances where employers would be able to condition returning to the workplace on the employee participating in some information sharing,” she said. “That doesn’t mean that they have to consent to share anything and everything.”

Photo credit: LeoPatrizi, Getty Images

Some have explained to me that “practicing at the top of your license” is a way of encouraging lawyers to work on the highest-value client matters and perhaps even be rewarded monetarily. Others have explained that this refers to the end of repetitive, manual work. Consequently, it will lead to more impact and career satisfaction for lawyers.

These are intriguing, though admittedly very different, explanations. So, I crowdsourced the answer. What does “practicing at the top of your license” mean to you? My network, as always, had many of their own thoughts to share!

Going Beyond The Law

Lourdes M. Turrecha, the chief privacy tech evangelist of The Rise of Privacy Tech, and founder and CEO of PIC LLC,  said, “I interpret it to mean going beyond what the law says and providing value to the client by incorporating risk-based inquiries, such as the likelihood of the risk, risk mitigations, industry benchmarks, etc. Because it’s not helpful to tell clients the law prohibits you from doing X when the law hasn’t been enforced in 10 years, and the rest of the industry ignores it anyway.”

Matthew Coleman, the cyber, privacy, and data innovation managing associate at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, said, “Actors and comedic improvisers have a similar phrase: ‘Play to the top of your intelligence.’ It means that you can play a character who is not smart, so long as you use your intelligence to enliven that character with real attributes and motivations so that you create a living, breathing, three-dimensional human being. Otherwise, the character will just be an unbelievable, cartoonish stereotype.”

He continued, “I believe a similar interpretation applies here. Lawyers should use every tool in the toolkit granted under the law in his/her/their practice of the law. That means it’s not enough just to mark up contracts, just as it’s not enough for an actor to use a silly voice or an accent in creating a character.” He continued, “Representation of clients requires a full 360-degree view of the facts, the law, the issues and risks, the options, the lawyer’s past experiences, the client’s past experiences, and the likely turn of the tides in order to counsel, advocate for, and defend the interests of your clients. Similar to Lourdes’ view, this means going beyond just doing the legal work and what the law says to bring a full multifaceted, three-dimensional analysis of what’s right for the client.”

Evolve, Learn, And Add Value

Colin Levy, seasoned in-house counsel, and legal technology and legal innovation thought leader, said, “To me, it means always evolving, always seeking to bring more value to your role, always learning, and always being keenly aware that you do not know everything.”

Jamie Szal, an associate of Brann & Isaacson, said, “For me, practicing at the top of my license not only means to the best of my abilities but also to mean that I should constantly strive to make my abilities better. This gets at the curiosity drive Colin Levy alluded to. It also gets at knowing what my limitations are so that I can either improve them or delegate to someone best suited to pitch in.”

Talar Herculian Coursey, general counsel at Vista Ford, said, “For me, it’s not so much about my license as it is about my experience. I’m originally an employment lawyer, and I still consider myself an employment lawyer first and foremost, even after nine years as general counsel. But, giving the best of me to my employer is usually something other than employment law advice. I sometimes feel like the ‘license’ can be an unnecessary shackle.”

Teach Others And Give Work Away

Heather Meeker, the technology transactions partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP, and founding portfolio partner of OSS Capital, said, “Here is one way of looking at it. Once you have done a task enough times to be comfortable at it, teach it to someone who works for you. The more work you give away, the more you get.”

“My interpretation of ‘practice at the top of your license’ means to do the work that can be done exclusively by you, whether it be trying a case, working with a client, or allocating your time to innovation,” said Shari E. Belitz, CEO of Shari Belitz Communications, an educational consulting company that teaches lawyers, insurance industry professionals, and companies how to use social psychology to achieve favorable litigation outcomes at settlement or trial. She continued, “However, there are (at least) two prerequisites to being able to ‘practice at the top of your license’: 1) developing/teaching/mentoring so you have strong bench strength, and 2) having learned the operations/process beginning to end before you are able to focus on the high level.”

Olivia Vizachero, owner of The Less Stressed Lawyer, supports this view. She said, “I’m adopting Shari Belitz’s answer as my own. I think she hit the nail on the head here.”

Victoria Pynchon of She Negotiates Consulting said, “It means ‘delegate’ — something old-timers used to do more than the current crop of senior associates and junior partners. It frees you up to bring the savvy, wisdom, and skill of your years of expertise to every venture and train the next generation at the same time. Let a first year take a nonessential deposition, argue an easy motion, write the first draft of everything. It doesn’t mean work only on highest-value client matters. That would be unethical.”

Practicing “at the top of your license” is an open-ended phrase, but it also serves as a valuable starting point for discussions about how we as lawyers can practice more ethically, effectively, and creatively. Whatever it’s supposed to mean, it challenges us to think about how we can be better at what we do and to think of new ways of getting that done. As professionals, we can become complicit in what we do; why not instead constantly look and ahead and strive to do that better?

What does “practicing at the top of your license” mean to you?

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Olga V. Mack is the CEO of Parley Pro, a next-generation contract management company that has pioneered online negotiation technology. Olga embraces legal innovation and had dedicated her career to improving and shaping the future of law. She is convinced that the legal profession will emerge even stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive than before by embracing technology. Olga is also an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup advisor, public speaker, adjunct professor, and entrepreneur. She founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to participate on corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. She authored Get on Board: Earning Your Ticket to a Corporate Board Seat and Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security. You can follow Olga on Twitter @olgavmack.

It’s been a tough, lonely pandemic for the private equity industry. Returns have been bad, exacerbated by an ineptitude in the retail sector which has been embarrassingly exposed. The hyperactive SEC has been on its case, and even if the sanctions stemming therefrom have been modest, it’s quite frankly a nuisance firms could do without. Worst of all, when it turned to its friends in Washington in its hour of need, it got a stunning cold shoulder: No PPP money for those ineptly run businesses previously so profitably leveraged by their p.e. owners, no matter how much their banking buddies would like to provide it.

The police and army helped the rival faction of the MDC to seize the building, previously known as Harvest House,  last night.

Also arrested was the other Vice President, Lynette Kerenzi-Kore along with deputy secretary- general  Douglas Chimhini and executive members, Lovemore Chinoputsa, Vongai Tome and Gladys Hlatywayo.

“We are currently at Harare Central Police Station,” tweeted Hlatywayo this afternoon.

More later……

Post published in: Featured

* President Trump tweeted a letter that his lawyer John Dowd wrote to former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis about criticism Mattis lodged against President Trump. Guess Dowd can save money on a stamp… [Hill]

* The attorney accused of firebombing an NYPD police car during protests last week has been suspended from his Biglaw firm. [New York Post]

* A Texas attorney is accused of charging homeless people exorbitant fees to help process their stimulus payments. [KHOU.com]

* Attorneys are fearful over plans to reopen Brooklyn courthouses closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As someone who has attended CCP and JCP in Kings County many times, I can understand the concern. [New York Daily News]

* Jay-Z lent his private jet to Ahmaud Arbery’s legal team so they could make it to a court proceeding on time. [E! Online]

* Amazon is facing a lawsuit alleging that warehouse workers were not properly protected from COVID-19. Thought Amazon would just have robot workers by now… [Fox News]

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Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

On 22 May 2020, the Forum delivered a petition to the Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage and the Commissioner-General of Police calling for investigations and decisive action on, among other violations, the abduction and torture of the Honourable Member of Parliament (MP) for Harare West constituency Joanna Mamombe, and two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Alliance youth leaders Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova. On 4 June 2020, the Minister of Home Affairs delivered a statement in which an update on the investigations of the case was given. In the process, statements were made which compel the Forum to respond on account of its mandate, and the petition it submitted.

The Forum notes with dismay, shock and repugnance the mention of three of our members by Minister Kazembe Kazembe, in his press statement on 4 June 2020. The statement insinuated that the abductions are fake, and mentioned our three members in a manner meant to create an association with the allegations of fake abductions.

Firstly, we categorically state that the CSU is not an “opposition-aligned NGO” as claimed by the Minister, but an apolitical entity recognised and operating in terms of the laws of Zimbabwe.  Secondly, at no point did the abducted trio visit or interact with CSU on the fateful day. The Minister chooses to identify CSU as having offices “in the Kopje area” and “in the vicinity of Fidelity Life Towers”, thus suggesting that the trio must have been at CSU as they “spent close to 30 minutes” in that area. Several organisations, including government offices, are based in the Kopje area, and we are at a loss as to why the Minister chooses to mention CSU. Further, CSU is not “an appendage” of any institution, and is a member of the Forum in its separate persona.

Our members are not “avid critics of government”, but lawful entities that exist for constitutional causes. Collectively and individually, we have responded to human rights abuses and rendered services to victims, including legal services to many who are wrongfully charged and end up being acquitted in criminal courts. The three torture victims, as with any other citizens of Zimbabwe, are entitled to medical doctors of their choice, and medical doctors have the right to freedom of profession, trade or occupation in terms of section 64 of the Constitution. This includes the right to treat the trio.

Our members have worked ceaselessly, including lending their expertise, in aid to the government-led fight against COVID-19. The mentioned CSOs in the Minister’s statement are long-standing, bona fide civil society organisations whose work speak for itself. With our members mentioned by name, we put on record our concerns for their safety and welfare, and it is our hope that these institutions and their personnel will remain untouched and unharmed. In a separate statement by ZANU-PF Acting Spokesperson Patrick Chinamasa on 4 June 2020, journalist Hopewell Chin’ono was also mentioned by name as a “false news peddler” and “detractor” allegedly targeting the first family. Our long memory and suffering reminds us that in the past, when individuals and institutions are named by high ranking government and ruling party officials as perceived adversaries, verbal and physical vilification follows closely behind.

The persistent and ceaseless attacks on CSOs leaders, both through skulduggery approaches and persecution by prosecution are well-documented tactics in Zimbabwe. This flies in the face of rhetoric on the new dispensation. The State and its functionaries should desist from perceiving CSOs as adversaries, but as partners in the quest for good governance, rule of law, protection of human rights, and the welfare of the Zimbabwean people.

Finally, we register our concern over the State’s attitude towards the case of the abduction and torture that was the subject of the press statement. The Forum is concerned with what appears to be non-exhaustive investigations, leading to a statement meant to divert attention. We note earlier statements by senior government and ruling party officials, that pre-emptively characterised the abductions as fake, and as having all the hallmarks of “other fake abductions”. We note, for instance, that the Minister’s statement fails to address the critical question of the conflicting statements issued by the police in the first two days of the abductions, including the confirmation by Police Spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi of the arrest of the trio.

We invite the government to release the investigative report to the public, so that all concerned can dissect the report and make sense of what transpired in the investigators’ view. This is important because abductions have become a standing practice in Zimbabwe, and it is important for citizens to know the truth behind this.

We have already seen the charging and arrest of the victims, and following these utterances by the government, it will not be surprising to witness further charges for “faking abductions” levelled against the victims in the following days – including those who have worked to assist the victims.

It is high time government stops having imaginary enemies, engaging in diversionary tactics, and delivers on its constitutional duty to ensure the safety, security and welfare of its citizens. When all around – the international community, CSOs, citizens – become enemies, it is time for self-examination. As the Forum, we remain committed to the cause of human rights per contracted in our Constitution and regional and international legal instruments, and to the cause of justice and peace.

Post published in: Featured