John Fieldsend
Sir John Charles Rowell Fieldsend
Early life
Fieldsend was the son of C. E. Fieldsend
After demobilisation, Fieldsend was called to the
Judicial career
In 1963, Fieldsend was appointed to the High Court of Southern Rhodesia. In 1965, as a member of the Appellate Division of the High Court, he was the sole dissenter in Madzimbamuto v Lardner-Burke, a challenge to the legality of Southern Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) earlier that year. He wrote that "while the present authorities are factually in control of all executive and legislative powers in Rhodesia, they have not usurped the judicial function. For this reason they are neither a fully de facto nor a de jure Government".
In 1968, Justice Fieldsend resigned from the bench after the High Court dismissed the applications for stays of execution by three black Rhodesians convicted of murder and terrorist offences before UDI, stating that his continuation in office "amounts to accepting the abandonment of the 1961 Constitution".
After his resignation, Fieldsend left Rhodesia for the United Kingdom, where he worked for the Law Commission, serving as its secretary from 1978 to 1980. That year, he was invited by Robert Mugabe to become the first Chief Justice of the now-independent Zimbabwe, serving until 1987.
He then served as the Chief Justice of the
Fieldsend was appointed a
Family
In 1945, he married Muriel Gedling, a schoolteacher; they had a son, Peter, and daughter, Catherine Ann. [2]
References
- ^ eDuzeNet. "Zimbabwe's first Chief Justice dies". bulawayo24.com. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
- ^ "FIELDSEND - Deaths Announcements - Telegraph Announcements". announcements.telegraph.co.uk.