| |
Back to Index
This article participates on the following special index pages:
Zimbabwe's Elections 2013 - Index of Articles
Mayoral
elections and Zimbabwe's legislative I Ching
Derek
Matyszak, Senior Researcher, Research & Advocacy Unit (RAU)
October
29, 2013
View this article
on the Research & Advocacy Unit website
Download
this document
- Acrobat
PDF version (287KB)
If you do not have the free Acrobat reader
on your computer, download it from the Adobe website by clicking
here
Introduction
Zimbabwe’s
legislative architecture, never particularly elegant, is becoming
increasingly ramshackle. Legislation pertaining to the “indigenisation”
of business in Zimbabwe probably leads this heavily contested field.
Many of the provisions in this regard are simply legal gibberish
and most are not authorised by superior legislation, with Government
Notices issued which are ultra vires (beyond the powers granted
by) the Regulations, Regulations ultra vires the enabling Act of
Parliament, and the Act of Parliament itself of dubious constitutional
validity. The Electoral
Act has joined this ignominious array, after Mugabe claimed
that the Presidential
Powers (Temporary Measures) Act allowed him to unilaterally
set the rules for a poll in which he was a contestant and to thus
introduce amendments to the Act. These amendments, themselves of
questionable legality, were introduced in haste, without the kind
of careful scrutiny which ought to precede the passage of Bills
through the parliamentary process. The result is an Act with contradictory
provisions, cross references to sections, which were clearly intended
to be key, but which have been inadvertently omitted and portions
which are redundant.
This situation
has been exacerbated by the adoption of a new Constitution
for Zimbabwe, not only because the provisions of several Acts of
Parliament are now subject to constitutional challenge, but also
because of the absence of statutes, and the required insertion into
extant laws of amending provisions, which ought to have been introduced
before the Constitution became effective, but were not. As a result,
the interpretation of statutes has become more akin to divination
than jurisprudence. And when staring at the statutory entrails that
purport to be legislation, like the Greek oracles before them, the
door is open to judges and policy makers to divine meaning more
from an astute understanding of political currents, rather than
that which is ostensibly under examination.
Such theatre
recently obtained when determining the manner in which mayors ought
to be appointed for the newly-elected municipal councils. Initially,
it appeared as if this issue would mark the first exchange of fire
between the Zanu-PF Minister of Local Government, Ignatius Chombo,
and the MDC-T on what is now likely to be the main terrain of battle
between Zanu-PF and the opposition - the municipal authority of
the cities of Bulawayo, Harare and Chitungwiza. This is the locus
of the sole vestige of power retained by MDC-T after
the July 2013 election. However, after an application (which
sought to counter a directive from the Ministry of Local Government
on mayoral appointments) brought by the MDC-T to the High Court
was dismissed on procedural grounds by Justice Bere (who ruled that
the matter “was not urgent” and thus could not be heard)
the MDC-T retreated and accepted the position of the Ministry on
mayoral appointments.
Visit
the Research and Advocacy Unit fact
sheet
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
TOP
|
