Rule by law or rule of law? Military and police presence in Harare during protests against former president Robert Mugabe, 18 November 2017. PHOTO Graeme Williams There appears to be some light at the end of Zimbabwe’s dark constitutional tunnel but only time will tell if the gains made will gather pace Since its founding as a modern state in 1890, Zimbabwe has had a tumultuous political and constitutional history. This history includes an illegal constitutional order declared by white settlers in 1970 in the context of an equally illegal Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) whose strategic interest was to preserve power in “responsible” white hands and defer black majority rule into the indefinite future.