Zanu (PF) in no hurry to remodel laws

IN MARCH, police in eastern Zimbabwe arrested Samson Jackson for mocking the country’s 91-year-old president. “Robert Mugabe is about to die, so why do you waste your time following his party?” Jackson is alleged to have asked a public meeting of the ruling party in Manicaland province.

Police charged him with contravening what is commonly referred to as the “insult law” that makes disrupting a public gathering a crime. If found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

The 35-year-old Jackson is just one of 80 people arrested for insulting the president in the past five years, according to Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. Now citizens are challenging the law because they say it contravenes the country’s new constitution — which protects freedom of speech.

Zimbabweans adopted a new constitution in March 2013, the first since the country’s independence in 1980. The new charter places a limit of two five-year terms on the president, includes a bill of rights, dual citizenship and guarantees — among other entitlements — freedom of expression. But the anticipation that greeted that new document has faded as Mugabe’s governing Zanu (PF) drags its feet calibrating the country’s laws to the new constitution.

“There are certain new features in the new constitution and the laws must now be adjusted accordingly,” says Chris Mhike, a lawyer based in Harare. “The attorney-general’s office has put the figure at over 400 laws that need to be aligned to the new constitution.”

Aside from the so-called “insult law”, the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act is another law that is seen as anticonstitutional. Legal observers say the law needs to reflect the provisions of the new constitution that stipulate that arrested people are entitled to appear in court within 48 hours, including during weekends.

Under the old constitution, arrested people appeared in court only during working days, and could be kept in jail for up to seven days, even after a judge had granted bail.

The electoral laws are another sore spot. The new constitution mandates the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to register voters and compile the voters roll. Yet the Electoral Amendment Act, still in force, gives these crucial responsibilities to the registrargeneral, Tobaiwa Mudede.