Zimpapers Logo

George Maponga Masvingo Bureau
Students from Great Zimbabwe University’s Herbert Chitepo Law School have made history by becoming the first African team to get into the top 20 of this year’s Jessup Moot Court Competition held in the Washington DC, United States.

GZU finished the competition, which brought together close to 700 teams from various law schools, on position 19, an unprecedented feat by an African university.

One of its students, Mr Simba Chigumira, was adjudged the 25th best oralist at the competition.

Affectionately known as the “Olympics Moot Court Competition” the competition  brings together laws schools from all over the globe.

More than 1 500 laws schools from around the globe take part in preliminary rounds of the competition before the number is whittled down to around 700 schools.

GZU is the only African university in the top 100.

Team GZU also bagged three other awards at the competition where the institution has slowly been making a mark after being the only African university to make it into the top 100 in last year’s competition.

The university’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Rungano Zvobgo, congratulated the team for its performance which is unparalleled in Africa.

He said the performance was testament to the high learning standards at Herbert Chitepo Law School, which is now arguably one of the best jurisprudence teaching institutions in Africa.

“I want to congratulate them and this is an indication that we have abundant intellectual talent in this country and I have no doubt that as a country we have capacity to produce the requisite human capital to drive our vision to become an upper middle income economy by 2030 as set out by President Mnangagwa, who is also our Chancellor,” said Prof Zvobgo.

He said his institution will continue to shape and model its training in response to the country’s developmental challenges.

The GZu’s Herbert Chitepo Law School was named after Zimbabwe’s first black barrister and late national hero Cde Herbert Chitepo.

Cde Chitepo, who was Zanu national chairman, was killed in a car bomb explosion in Lusaka, Zambia, on March 18, 1975, robbing the country’s liberation war machine of a dedicated leader who had worked tirelessly to execute the armed struggle against the Rhodesian settler government.