BY RICHARD MUPONDE Retired Supreme Court judge Justice Nick McNally has died. Former Education minister David Coltart announced his death yesterday, adding that he passed away in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Sunday afternoon. “I have just been advised that Justice Nick McNally died in Johannesburg yesterday afternoon (Sunday). My deepest sympathy and condolences are extended to his family, friends and colleagues. Justice McNally was one of our finest jurists, a man of great intellect and integrity,” Coltart said in a tweet. McNally was among judges who were forced out of the bench by the late former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe for making a ruling to the effect that the fast-track land reform programme was a violation of human rights. He was one of the judges who resisted the politicisation of the Judiciary after Mugabe’s regime had allegedly started packing the Superior Court benches with government supporters, and manipulating the court rolls. Some of the judges forced off the bench by Mugabe in 2002 included David Bartlett, James Devitte, Michael Gillespie and former Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay. MacNally was a diplomat in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland from 1954 to 1964; legal practitioner from 1964 to 1981; senior counsel in 1980; High Court judge from 1982 to 1984; and a Supreme Court judge from 1984 to 2001. After he retired from the bench he became the Judge of Appeal, at the Court of Appeal in Botswana. McNally served on a number of boards, including the Catholic University in Zimbabwe, and the Mashambanzou Aids Care Trust, among others.