Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. By Reason Razao
LEGAL experts Veritas have questioned the smooth sailing of six bills through Parliament saying the feat was achieved at the expense of constitutionalism and the rule of law.
In a statement, the legal think tank said all the six bills, as passed, are marred by defects which should have been attended to by Parliament much earlier.
The bills are the Electricity Amendment, Prisons and Correctional Service, Children’s Amendment, Labour Amendment, Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Amendment and the Electoral Amendment.
According to Veritas, the Bills were left until the closing weeks of the Parliamentary session for reasons known only to Ministers and Chief Whips.
Commenting on the Electricity Bill Amendment, Veritas said one of the mandatory penalties introduced by the modifications is too excessive and unconstitutional.
“The Bill contains several drafting errors. These defects were eloquently pointed out in the National Assembly to no avail. They were not even raised in the Senate, which disposed of the Committee Stage without objection or debate,” Veritas said.
On the Prisons and Correctional Service Bill, Veritas bemoaned the existence of a single Parole Board for the whole country.
According to Veritas, as suggested in their earlier analysis of the Bill, each province should have a Parole Board to enable the prevention of releasing dangerous prisoners as evidenced by the latest Presidential Amnesty.
“The same Bill Watch also identified other defects which were not corrected during the Committee Stage in the National Assembly, including an inconsistency with the Constitution that allows the Minister to make regulations on a subject reserved to the Prisons and Correctional Service Commission.”
Commenting on the Children’s Amendment Bill, the legal think tank said; “As in the National Assembly there was no attempt by Senators to remedy the defect that it fails to align the Children’s Act with the Child Justice Bill, which passed through Parliament in March.”
In light of the Labour Amendment Bill, which went through all its stages and was passed without objection from Senators, Veritas added: “An important amendment made to the Bill by the National Assembly was to abolish the right of an employer to terminate a contract of employment by giving notice in terms of section 12(4) of the Labour Act. It is odd that it was left so long – it was introduced in January 2022 – and was then rushed through.”
According to legal experts, no attempt was made during the Committee Stage to propose remedying the various defects in the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Amendment Bill.
The legal think tank in their analysis of the Bill had argued that Clause 2, which creates the crime of wilfully damaging the sovereignty and national interest of Zimbabwe, was unconstitutional in that it allows the death penalty to be imposed in violation of section 48 of the Constitution.
Clause 3 of the Bill, which introduces a mandatory minimum sentence for rape, is unconstitutional because it makes no provision for alternative sentences to be imposed in special circumstances.
“The Bill that was passed differed only slightly from the original Bill as the result of the minor changes made by the National Assembly to clause 2(3) at the instance of the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs.
“It remains a bad Bill and will become a bad Act if the President assents to it – unconstitutional, in its specification of the death penalty for the new crime of unpatriotic behaviour [Clause 2] and the mandatory sentences for rape without provision for the cases in which “special circumstances” justifying departure from the mandatory minimums are present.”
On the Electoral Amendment, Veritas said the government’s handling of the Bill is extremely disappointing.
According to Veritas, only 5 or 6 of the electoral reform amendments that MPs had proposed during the Committee Stage were accepted by the Minister and the governing party.
“The Bill contains few, if any, of the electoral reforms recommended by the observer missions that reported on the 2018 elections or the Motlanthe Commission Report into the violence that followed them,” the legal think tank said.
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