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This article participates on the following special index pages:
Truth, justice, reconciliation and national healing - Index of articles
Position
on the temporal jurisdiction of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
July 11, 2012
Zimbabwe Lawyers
for Human Rights (ZLHR) continues to follow closely, and with interest,
the progress relating to the operationalisation of the Zimbabwe
Human Rights Commission (ZHRC).
ZLHR commends
the renewed commitment by the Minister of Justice & Legal Affairs,
and Parliament,
to finalise the legislation required to make the ZHRC functional.
This is long overdue. It is also in line with recommendations to
ensure that the ZHRC can commence its operations as soon as possible,
as accepted by the Government of Zimbabwe during the United Nations
(UN) Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review of Zimbabwe
held last year, and as strongly expressed
by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, during her
visit to Zimbabwe earlier this year.
The importance
of having an operational commission to deal with protection of human
rights cannot be over-emphasised, particularly in a society where
violations of fundamental rights and freedoms remain prevalent.
The urgency of having a functional mechanism to investigate and
deal with violations is further heightened where elections loom,
and bearing in mind previous trends in Zimbabwe where such violations
escalate in the run-up to, and following, key electoral and other
political processes.
So too, Zimbabwe
remains a country with immense challenges relating to the continuing
culture of impunity for perpetrators of human rights violations.
Without providing mechanisms to investigate and deal with past human
rights violations - whether through trials, national enquiries,
reparations, memorialisation, amongst other means - our society
will never be able to escape the vicious cycle of impunity or ensure
non-recurrence of such heinous crimes.
There has been
much debate and speculation in relation to the emotive issue of
the temporal jurisdiction of the ZHRC, which has been set in the
ZHRC Bill
as 13 February 2009 - a date agreed by the three negotiating
political parties.
ZLHR has also
noted the intention of the government to establish a national mechanism
that will deal with issues relating to post-conflict justice, healing
and reconciliation separately from the ZHRC, although precise details
as to the ambit of such a mechanism remain sparse. This accords
with regional and continental good practice, where human rights
institutions and truth/justice/reconciliation commissions have traditionally
been separate mechanisms.
ZLHR is of the
considered view that there is urgent need to approve the legislation
that will operationalise the ZHRC and allow it to substantively
commence its functions. It is a critical institution in the difficult
battle to reduce, stop and/or prevent ongoing and future human rights
violations in Zimbabwe. It must be fully functional in order to
play its role as elections approach. Resistance in relation to the
issue of temporal jurisdiction is delaying such operationalisation
and ensuring that the ZHRC cannot act on any ongoing and future
human rights violations.
At the same
time the political parties in government must, with urgency and
guided by the recommendations made by survivors of past human rights
violations, establish an independent mechanism to deal with issues
relating to past human rights violations and atrocities. The mandate
of this independent mechanism must be to deal with all past human
rights violations that have occurred in Zimbabwe, including the
pre-Independence era, as well as the post-Independence atrocities
of Gukurahundi, Operation
Murambatsvina, and electoral-related crimes, amongst others.
It is the role
of government to ensure the speedy establishment of such an independent
and credible mechanism. However political parties, trade unions,
the broad civil society, non-governmental organisations, and survivors
of violations and their families, must also ensure that they play
their role in ensuring that sufficient pressure is brought to bear
on the government to make this a reality and to do so with urgency.
Further, and
for the avoidance of any doubt, it must be clearly understood and
stressed that crimes committed in the past remain crimes, whether
or not a national human rights institution or other mechanism exists
to deal with past human rights violations. Government, political
players and other perpetrators of violations must disabuse themselves
of the notion that the creation of such mechanisms removes responsibility
and punishment for such crimes.
There is a constitutional
and legal obligation on the police, the prosecutorial authorities
and the judiciary to respectively investigate and arrest, prosecute,
and punish convicted perpetrators. ZLHR expects these constitutional
duties to be carried out without fear or favour, and will continue
to exercise its watchdog role in this regard.
Visit the ZLHR
fact sheet
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