David Coltart

His mother was the descendant of British settlers who settled in the Eastern Cape of South Africa in 1820.

His Scottish grandfather was Deputy Lord Provost of Edinburgh in 1938.

When Coltart was a young child the family relocated to Bulawayo.

He was educated at Hillside Primary School followed by Christian Brothers College, a Catholic private school run by the Irish Christian Brothers, in Bulawayo.

David Coltart (born 4 October 1957 ) is a Zimbabwean lawyer, Christian leader and politician.

After matriculation, rather than do conscripted military service (as was required of all white male Rhodesians at the time) he successfully applied and was accepted to join the BSAP and served from October 1977 to Jan 1978.

He left the BSAP by purchasing the remaining balance of his initial 3-year contract.

After this, Coltart enrolled at the University of Cape Town in 1978.

At UCT he earned his Bachelor of Arts in Law as well as his LLB (post-graduate law degree).

While at UCT Coltart first became involved in politics when he was elected as chairman of the Zimbabwe Students' Society.

He did general duties in Mashonaland, Matabeleland South, and Victoria provinces (Victoria became Masvingo province in 1980).

In 1981 he was threatened with deportation by the then apartheid government who did not like his activities promoting the new independent Zimbabwe.

Shortly after this, Coltart received a telegram from then Prime Minister Robert Mugabe stating the new Zimbabwe government's commitment to building a multiracial society and encouraging Coltart to return home after his studies.

Whilst at university, Coltart was also elected to serve on the Law Students' Council and was director of the Crossroads Legal Aid clinic, which provided services to indigent black South Africans.

In June 1981 Coltart became a professing Christian, an event which had a profound impact on his life and which has informed his thinking greatly ever since.

After completing his law degree in December 1982, Coltart returned to Zimbabwe and in January 1983 went to work for the Webb, Low and Barry law firm in Bulawayo.

Coltart played an instrumental role in the first detailed investigation into the genocide committed by the Mugabe regime in Matabeleland between 1982 and 1987.

Since 1983 Coltart has regularly spoken on Christian issues and periodically preaches in Zimbabwean churches and abroad.

Coltart married Jennifer Reine Barrett in 1983.

They have four children.

He was admitted as a Legal Practitioner of the Zimbabwean High Court in February 1983.

In April of that year he established the first Legal Aid Clinic in Bulawayo.

As a partner of Webb, Low and Barry, Coltart handled many human rights cases relating to the Gukurahundi genocide in Matabeleland between 1983 and 1987.

In 1983, whilst working as a lawyer, Coltart became involved in campaigning against the Republican Front, serving as campaign manager for Bob Nixon, the first independent to unseat the RF in 17 years.

He was appointed a partner of Webb, Low and Barry in 1984 and became the firm's senior partner in 1998, a position he still holds.

In 1986, Coltart authored a detailed report concerning human rights abuses in Matabeleland during 1985, which was submitted to the Minister of Justice and the governor of Matabeleland North.

During this time, Coltart represented various opposition PF ZAPU Central Committee members detained by the ZANU PF government, including Sidney Malunga, Edward Ndlovu and Stephen Nkomo (brother of ZAPU leader Joshua Nkomo).

In 1987 Coltart founded the Bulawayo Legal Projects Centre, a legal aid clinic, and was its director until 1997.

Prior to this he established a Legal Advice Centre in Bulawayo, with the help of the Bulawayo Association of Legal Practitioners.

In 1990 Coltart helped establish and became a board member of the Central and Southern African Legal Assistance Foundation.

He initiated the project as director of the Bulawayo Legal Projects Centre, one of the operational arms of the Legal Resources Centre in 1990.

This culminated in the publication in 1997 of the report entitled Breaking the Silence: Building True Peace by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe and the Legal Resources Foundation.

He was a founding member of the Movement for Democratic Change when it was established in 1999 and its founding secretary for legal affairs.

The publication of the report led to Coltart being publicly criticised on national television by Robert Mugabe in February 1999, who stated that:

"'The likes of Clive Wilson and Clive Murphy, complemented by the Aurets and Coltarts of our society, are bent on ruining the national unity and loyalty of our people and their institutions. But we will ensure that they do not ever succeed in their evil machinations.... Let them be warned therefore that unless their insidious acts of sabotage immediately cease, my Government will be compelled to take very stern measures against them and those who have elected to be their puppets.'"

He was the Member of Parliament for Bulawayo South in the House of Assembly from 2000 to 2008, and he was elected to the Senate in 2008.

He was the Minister for Education, Sport, Arts and Culture from February 2009 until August 2013.

He is a top official of the Citizens Coalition for Change political party which was formed in 2022.

Coltart was born in Gwelo, Midlands Province, in the former Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

He was born an only child to a Scottish bank manager father and a South African nurse mother.