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New
Constitution Act gazetted - Constitution Watch 29/2013
Veritas
May 22, 2013
The New Constitution
of Zimbabwe was Gazetted Today, Wednesday 22nd May 2013
Signing Ceremony at State House 22nd May 2013
President Mugabe signed
the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 20) Act at State House
this morning.
New
Constitution Act Gazetted House 22nd May 2013
The Act was gazetted
– published in the Government Gazette – this afternoon.
The Act enacts
the new Constitution of Zimbabwe as law. The text of the new Constitution
is set out in the Schedule to the Act.
This gazetting makes
22nd May 2013, “publication day” for the purposes of
the new Constitution. [The term “publication day” is
defined in the new Constitution’s Sixth Schedule as the day
on which the Act is published in the Government Gazette]. For the
significance of “publication day”, see the following
paragraph.
Parts
of the New Constitution that are Operative from Today
The two-stage
transitional process from the old Constitution to the new Constitution
was described in Constitution
Watch 26/2013 of 8th May. The parts of the new Constitution
listed below come into operation immediately on “publication
day”, today – and they override the corresponding parts
in the old Constitution.
The “effective date” for the rest of the new Constitution
is the day that whoever is elected President in the next harmonised
elections is sworn in and assumes office. Pending the effective
date, those parts of the old Constitution not overridden by the
new Constitution continue in operation.
The parts of the new
Constitution that are in effect from today onwards are listed in
its Sixth Schedule:
(a) Chapter 3, relating
to citizenship
(b) Chapter 4, being
the Declaration of Rights
(c) Chapter 5, relating
to the election and assumption of office of the President
(d) Chapter 6, relating
to the election of Members of Parliament, the summoning of Parliament
after a general election and to the assent to Acts of Parliament
by the President
(e) Chapter 7, relating
to elections, except sections 158, 160 and 161
(f) Chapter 8, relating
to the jurisdiction and powers of the Constitutional Court
(g) Chapter 9, relating
to principles of public administration and leadership
(h) section
208, relating to the conduct of members of the security services
(i) Chapter
12, in so far as it relates to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
(j) Chapter 14, relating
to provincial and local government.
Immediate
Practical Effects of New Constitution
A full discussion is
beyond the scope of this bulletin, but areas in which the new Constitution
should have an immediate impact from today onwards include:
Citizenship
The Registrar-General
and his officials will be obliged to apply the new provisions when
dealing with applications for IDs, voter registration and passports.
There should be a marked reduction in difficulties with officialdom.
Election
Preparations
The President
will not be able to issue a proclamation calling the next elections
immediately. He will have to wait for the Electoral Amendment Bill
to be passed and gazetted as law. This is because the new Constitution’s
provisions for elections – e.g. for some members of the National
Assembly and Senators to be elected under a party-list system of
proportional representation – cannot be implemented under
the current Electoral
Act. [Note: Parliament must do so before the 29th June when
it expires.]
New
rights for arrested and detained persons
The new Declaration
of Rights is in force from today. It confers important new rights
on arrested and detained persons. For example, anyone arrested for
an alleged offence “must be brought before a court as soon
as possible and in any event not later than 48 hours after the arrest
took place or the detention began, as the case may be, whether or
not the period ends on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday ...
[and any] person who is not brought to court within the 48-hour
period must be released immediately unless their detention has earlier
been extended by a competent court” [section 50(2)]. This
overrides current provisions in the Criminal
Procedure and Evidence Act allowing detention for more than
48 hours before first court appearance, and allowing senior police
officers to issue warrants for further detention in their capacity
as “justices of the peace”. The overridden provisions
are no longer operative.
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