Zimbabwe High School, Moot Court Students, Make Global News, After Being Capped, World Champions | ZimLegends Production
ZimLegends Wishes To Congratulate These Young Legends And Has Accordingly Included This Group Into Its Zimbabwe Digital Wall Of Fame Database
Mootcourt victory 
By Tapfuma Machakaire
A spirit of exuberance engulfed Zimbabwe in the first week of July 2022, following the momentous victory by a team of students who had just been crowned Champions of Europe after winning the International High School Moot Competition.
In May, the team was crowned world champions after winning the 2022 World Moot Court competition hosted virtually by the United States. As a result, they were invited to participate in the European Moot Court Championships in Romania, which started on June 25.
This was the first time that Zimbabwe has competed in this prestigious event.
Screaming headlines were carried by all local publications, with radio and television stations running special programmes on the historic achievement. International media organisations were also compelled to run the international story, albeit reluctantly by some media organisations that have always reported the story of the beleaguered nation in negative light.
The International High School Moot Court Competitions intended for high school learners and is aimed at encouraging an engagement with international (criminal) law. The competition is open to learners from all countries and is hosted in The Hague, Netherlands.
Zimbabwe was the only country representing Africa in the international event with a team of nine girls and two boys drawn from schools including Dominican Convent, Peterhouse, Midlands Christian College and Arundel.
Team Zimbabwe becomes the first team to win the International Moot Court and European Moot Court championships back to back in less than 30 days.
The Zim team which was coached by Nqobile Dube learned about the law of war, the subject for the just ended contest, three weeks before the competition.
On its way to the finals, the team participated in six moot court preliminary rounds against Scotland, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Switzerland and Bulgaria.
The team, which is sponsored by CBZ among other sponsors got an additional donation of US30 000 from President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The word “moot” originates from a scandinavian word which means meeting. The meetings concerned were assemblies of the members of a community for legislative or judicial purposes. The word derives its present meaning from the English Inns of Court in the sixteenth century where law students would present their legal arguments on a given set of factual circumstances (often resembling real cases) before one or several senior lawyers or judges.
Aspiring lawyers were thereby given experience in the art of persuasion, without having to gain such experience at the risk of inadvertently damaging a real client’s interests. Various regional, national and even international mooting competitions have developed through the years.
