Constitution Of Zimbabwe 2022 Pdf Download

The Constitution of Zimbabwe is the supreme law of Zimbabwe. The independence constitution of 1980 was the result of the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement and is sometimes called the Lancaster Constitution.[1] A proposed constitution, drafted by a constitutional convention, was defeated by a constitutional referendum during 2000.

In practice, the 2008 power-sharing deal provided the structure for much of the government. The three political parties in Zimbabwe, ZANU-PF, MDC-T and MDC-N negotiated a new proposed constitution after a constitutional outreach program.[2]

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The new constitution was presented to Parliament on 5 February 2013 and subsequently approved in the referendum of 16 March 2013.[3][4] Parliament approved it on 9 May 2013 and President Robert Mugabe gave it his assent on 22 May 2013.

In 2013, Zimbabwe adopted a new constitution. That same year a Zambian technical committee released a final draft of a new constitution over which they had been working since 2011, and the Constitutional Review Commission of Tanzania released a first draft of a proposed constitution for the United Republic of Tanzania. Each of these countries had been then and has continued to be engaged in a substantial debate both on the contents of these constitutions and on whether they were reflective of the aspirations of their citizens and the needs of the moment. So it seemed an appropriate time to make some of that debate available in a comparative way.This publication is the outcome of that limited purpose. Each chapter takes the same shape: a short summary of the constitutional history of the country, a description of the process which established the text of the latest version of the constitution, and a review of certain key principles contained in the text.

In 2016, the mood was inevitably more somber. In Zimbabwe, the constitution is regularly flaunted by the incumbent government and the public service. Few laws have been aligned with the constitution, leaving massive contradictions which have severe implications for effective governance and for protection and promotion of human rights. In Zambia, the momentum for adoption of the new draft has slowly but surely been sandbagged, until in August 2016, the innovative human rights components of the draft failed at the referendum, not because of voter resistance but because of low turnout. The Zambian Parliament had already cherry picked certain clauses so that the country remains with a somewhat confused and certainly not constitutionally coherent patchwork version which falls short of the aspirations expressed in 2011 when the latest process began. In Tanzania, it appears that the process has stalled completely on the verge of adopting a draft which itself appeared to undermine the constitutional versions that emerged from public consultation.

By documenting the contentious process of drafting a new constitution, Democrats offers a fascinating glimpse at the political mechanics of a modern African country struggling toward democratic change.

In March 2008, following general elections widely believed to have been won by the MDC-T; violence erupted as the ZANU-PF refused to concede defeat, and instead embarked on a violent campaign of reprisals and attacks against the opposition. In September 2008, the MDC and the ZANU-PF reached a power sharing deal, so-called Global Political Agreements (GPA), brokered by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) ending more than six months of political violence. The GPA established unity government with Mugabe as President and Tsvangirai as Prime Minister. The Agreement also stipulated that Zimbabwe must have a new constitution by August 2010.

From the outset there were two schools of thought on how the process should unfold. On the one hand was the ZANU-PF which wanted the new document, to be modeled on the Kariba draft and on the other, the MDC and a civil society who advocated for a fresh start. Notwithstanding the clear timeframe of the GPA, enormous logistical, administrative and funding challenges, as well as disagreement over the status of the Kariba draft, delayed the Constitution drafting process for over a year. Despite these challenges COPAC made some progress in 2009 when it convened the first All-Stakeholders Conference in July 2009. 4000 delegates attended the conference, including parliamentarians as well as nominees from political parties and civil society. Delegates chosen to represent special interests groups also attended. From June to October 2010 COPAC held public consultations to gather the views of Zimbabweans as stipulated by the GPA. COPAC held a total of 4,943 meetings in all 1,957 wards. The consultation process was meant to allow the people of Zimbabwe to gain ownership of the constitution making process although ultimately, there was still a wide feeling that it remained mostly in the control of the political parties.

President Mugabe issues a decree setting 31 July - the deadline given by the Constitutional Court - as the date for presidential and parliamentary elections, saying legislation would take too long. Prime Minister Tsvangirai accuses Mr. Mugabe of acting unconstitutionally

Approved overwhelmingly in a referendum in March this year, the constitution clips the powers of the president, limits presidential tenures to two five-year terms and does away with the post of prime minister.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) comprehensively outlines the international standards on the rights of women that are to be pursued by State Parties to the Convention. Adopted by the General Assembly in 1979, it entered into force in 1981 and set the scene for a comprehensive approach to the human rights of women by State Parties that have ratified the Convention. The underlying spirit of the Convention is that discrimination against women violates principles of equality and respect for human dignity and presents obstacles to the advancement of women in the political, social, economic, and cultural spheres. The Convention recognizes in its preamble that the complete development of any country and the furtherance of world peace requires the maximum participation of women on equal terms with men in all fields. Zimbabwe ratified the Women's Convention on the 13th of May 1991 without reservations, thereby agreeing to pursue active measures to eliminate discrimination against women by both State and non-state actors. The protection of human rights at the national level is fashioned by the normative and institutional frameworks that exist in a particular country. The major thrust of this paper is to examine the progress, as well as the gaps, from a legislative viewpoint in advancing the rights of women in Zimbabwe. A country-specific analysis allows for a clear understanding of the nature of the constitutional and legal framework under which human rights instruments are expected to materialize. In Zimbabwe the Constitution is the highest law of the land and any law inconsistent with the Constitution is void to the extent of that inconsistency. As such, under the Constitution, international instruments do not automatically form part of the law unless approved by Parliament or have been incorporated into the law by an Act of Parliament. The Constitution therefore provides the barometer with which to measure all other laws in the country.

The Judiciary and the Zimbabwean Constitution offers interesting perspectives on the nature, mandate, and structure of the judiciary and its role in promoting constitutionalism, the rule of law, and human rights.

Since 2000 civil society organisations particularly the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) has not rested in putting the issue of the constitution at the centre of any possible transition or change of government in Zimbabwe. To win the hearts and minds of the electorate, political gladiators particularly those hailing from the opposition have not stopped promising Zimbabweans a new constitution for a new Zimbabwe if elected as new government. The former ruling party ZANU-PF seemed to be happy with the current constitution that gave its leader President Robert Mugabe sweeping executive powers. It had to be dragged kicking and screaming to accept the current process of constitution-making. This was clearly demonstrated by some ZANU-PF activists who tried to disrupt the first meetings organised to launch the new constitution-making process in 2009.

This constitution came into being as a result of a series of partisan-motivated amendments that have reached a total of seventeen or more. These amendments have resulted in conflation of the state with ZANU-PF, reduction of Zimbabwe to a party-state and conversion of the nation into a party-nation. In this scheme of things, President Mugabe and ZANU-PF have been elevated into national symbols. Opposing Mugabe and ZANU-PF is seen as being unpatriotic and being an enemy of Zimbabwe. Membership to ZANU-PF and loyalty to President Mugabe often came with immunity from prosecution or benefiting from presidential pardons whenever convicted for violence and other offences. In short, the need for a new constitution is a desire to replace both the ceasefire constitution and the ZANU-PF constitution that have combined to plunge Zimbabwe into its worst governance crisis at the beginning of 2000.

The result was the Kariba Draft Constitution agreed secretly among three political parties of ZANU-PF, MDC-T and MDC-M. It is this party-concocted document that ZANU-PF has been accused of trying to push forward as the blue-print for a new constitution of Zimbabwe. MDC-T and MDC-M are trying to save face by dissociating themselves from this secretly drafted version of a constitution. NCA and other civil society groups that initiated the crusade for a new constitution prior to 2000 have lost the centre stage in the making of the constitution. Civil society is now participating in the constitutional outreach activities underway in Zimbabwe as invited guests of political gladiators. In a deeply polarised terrain that unfolded between 2000 and 2008, even civil society was bifurcated into ZANU-PF and MDC affiliation, giving way to the supremacy of political parties as the sole representatives of the people. 17dc91bb1f