Independent but not free: Use of the law to silence critics in Zim
T ODAY, Zimbabwe celebrates 44 years of independence with so many questions being asked such as what was the country’s independence all about?
After attaining independence on April 18, 1980, the ruling party adopted means to ensure its continued stay in power.
One of the means include using the law as a tool to maintain and retain power.
Law refers to the rules and regulations that govern human conduct or other societal relations and are enforceable by the government. Most legal rules are designed to achieve the ends of justice.
However, this has not been the case in Zimbabwe post-colonial period, the law has been manipulated by the government for decades to ensure it continually stays in power.
In terms of governing human conduct it has been crafted in a way that subdues, monitors citizens’ conduct and at the end ensuring that government retains its power. Laws have been passed post-independence to ensure continued possession of power, some of which have been repealed.
The key aspect of government’s autocratic control is the strategic use of law and legal provisions to retain office and strengthen its power in ways that contravene or undermine democratic norms, processes and institutions.
The use of legal strategies is particularly notable in critical periods around elections and threats of transfer of power, periods where government needs to legitimise itself or assert control.
For instance, the restriction of internet towards the 2023 elections was a way of controlling information that is being shared among people and the shutdown of internet is usually justified by the limitations provided for in the Constitution.
Ways in which the law has been used to constitute uncontested power in post-colonial Zimbabwe closely resembles colonial times as government has relied on the same institutions and invoked the same justifications by mobilising a discourse of law to silence political dissent and to criminalise political opposition.
Despite the removal of the late former President Robert Mugabe from power, the new “dispensation” has carried on the tradition of maintaining power through direct use of violence and threats of violence, the passing of legislation impeding opposition mobilisation, imprisoning opposition leaders and the use of State resources to infiltrate and divide the opposition. Legal strategies have constituted central tools of authoritarian repression in post-independence Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe is governed by the principle of the rule of law, which seeks to ensure that no one is above the law.
It is the law that rules and not people. However, at the end of the day rules are made by people to further their interests. Notably, the Mugabe government reaction to the constitutional referendum defeat in 2000 and the significant threat it presented to its political power, the rule of law deteriorated sharply.
As part of Zanu PF’s turn to authoritarian nationalism, the fast track land reform and resettlement programme was carried out in a manner provoking conflict with core legal norms and the Judiciary was reformed to ensure that its decisions complied with the dictates of the ruling party, what Lovemore Madhuku calls “the Mugabe approach” to law.
The integrity of the legal system was compromised through a combination of pressures on independent judges to resign, repeated refusal by the State to comply with court orders and the granting of amnesties to people who had committed acts of violence on behalf of government.
When the ruling party came under increasing pressure from opposition parties in the early 2000s, it stepped up legal and extra-legal attempts to undermine opposition mobilisation.
Through the passing of legislation making opposition mobilisation more difficult, the government became increasingly isolated.
Accused of human rights abuses, it became more and more hostile towards those civil society organisations (CSOs) which it perceived to be working closely with international donors and passed legislation that impacted negatively on the operations of CSOs.
A key example is the Public Order and Security Act, which was passed in 2002 to restrict activities of the opposition and to control the independent Press. It has since been replaced by an equally repressive Maintenance of Order Act.
This Act made it mandatory for all organisers of public gatherings to inform the police of their plans in advance but has been used selectively in support of the ruling party.
Government is currently pushing for the enactment of PVOs Bill which will require all CSOs to be registered by an NGO Council to be appointed by a government minister. The intention of the Bill can be seen as outlawing all foreign funding for CSOs operating in the areas of human rights, democracy and governance. The intention is to limit the abilities of these CSOs to operate effectively, thereby cushioning the government against accusations of human rights violations.
The government has been known for enacting legislation that ensures that it retains power by limiting and restricting freedom of the media.
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