Judge tells Zimbabwe to issue passport

Zimbabwe's High Court ordered the government yesterday to issue a passport to a veteran human rights activist in a ruling that could have implications for millions of Zimbabweans of foreign descent.

The government plans to appeal against Judge Benjamin Paradza's ruling that a passport should be given to Judith Todd, 57, who was stripped of her Zimbabwean citizenship because she took no steps to renounce a possible claim to a New Zealand passport.

Ms Todd was born in Zimbabwe, but her father, the former Rhodesian prime minister Sir Garfield Todd, 93, was born in New Zealand. He moved to Rhodesia as a missionary 70 years ago.

Judge Paradza granted the Registrar General, Tobaiwa Mudede, permission to appeal against his ruling in the Supreme Court, but said that in the meantime Ms Todd should be given a passport within 14 days. Lawyers for Ms Todd, a human rights worker and a pioneer of the nation's independent media, expect the appeal to be heard in about three months.

Last year President Robert Mugabe introduced tough citizenship laws intended to strip 40,000 white Zimbabweans of British origin of the right to vote, claiming they had not properly renounced their claim to British citizenship.

The law, which bans dual citizenship, will also affect more than 2 million Zimbabweans with Malawian and Mozambican parentage.

Mr Mudede has demanded that any Zimbabwean suspected of having a claim to a second citizenship must produce proof from the foreign country that he or she does not secretly hold its passport.

Many embassies refuse to provide such proof, saying they do not provide consular services to non-citizens.