Zimbabwe is seeing more and more people suing over getting arrested or held by the cops when they shouldn't have been. It's key to know that an arrest or detention can be legal or not.
The Constitution of Zimbabwe has a section, Section 49(1)(b), that protects freedom from being thrown in jail for no good reason. If the police want to lock you up legally, they better have a legitimate cause.
So, whether an arrest is kosher comes down to whether the officer used their right to arrest properly. There's another law, Section 25 of the Criminal Procedure & Evidence Act, that says when a peace officer can make an arrest. But they've gotta be smart about using that power.
The cop has to think about some important stuff before slapping on the cuffs, like if the person might run away, if it'll stop more crimes from happening, or if it'll keep people from messing with police work or witnesses. When an arrest or detention breaks the rules, it's called a delict. That means you can sue for money to make up for what you went through. Usually, it's the police who get in trouble for this. But one time, a company had an employee arrested for stealing when they shouldn't have. The court said that counted as a delict, too. So regular people and businesses can both get hit with this if they play a part in putting someone behind bars wrongly.
The Constitution of Zimbabwe has a section, Section 49(1)(b), that protects freedom from being thrown in jail for no good reason. If the police want to lock you up legally, they better have a legitimate cause.
So, whether an arrest is kosher comes down to whether the officer used their right to arrest properly. There's another law, Section 25 of the Criminal Procedure & Evidence Act, that says when a peace officer can make an arrest. But they've gotta be smart about using that power.
The cop has to think about some important stuff before slapping on the cuffs, like if the person might run away, if it'll stop more crimes from happening, or if it'll keep people from messing with police work or witnesses. When an arrest or detention breaks the rules, it's called a delict. That means you can sue for money to make up for what you went through. Usually, it's the police who get in trouble for this. But one time, a company had an employee arrested for stealing when they shouldn't have. The court said that counted as a delict, too. So regular people and businesses can both get hit with this if they play a part in putting someone behind bars wrongly.
