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Parliament
not sitting: urgent need to realign laws with Constitution - Bill
Watch 54/2013
Veritas
October 29, 2013
Parliament is
not sitting this week
The
next sitting of the National Assembly is on 5th November
The
next sitting of the Senate is on 19th November
The
2014 Budget - Pre-Budget Seminar at Victoria Falls
From Thursday
31st October to Sunday 3rd November MPs will be attending the customary
annual Pre-Budget Seminar. It will take place at the Elephant Hills
complex in Victoria Falls.
No Bills
on Parliamentary agenda
The situation
at Parliament
remains unchanged; no Bills are on the agenda for the next sittings
of the Houses. No Bills have been sent to the Government Printer
to be printed for presentation in Parliament.
Bills being
prepared - Ministries are, however, preparing Bills. Examples are:
Micro
Insurance Bill
This proposed Bill and related amendments to the Insurance Act are
being worked on by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning
with a view to accommodating previously marginalised insurers could
be accommodated in the sector. Players in the insurance industry
are being consulted.
Criminal
Procedure and Evidence Amendment Bill
The Deputy Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs
has assured Senators that the Ministry is giving high priority to
the finalisation of a Bill to amend the law of criminal procedure
to bring it into line with the new Constitution’s new provisions
on the rights of arrested and accused persons and persons undergoing
trial. The urgent need to pass such a Bill has been covered in Veritas
bulletins, for example, Constitution
Watch 35/2013 of 23rd September. It should have been passed
as an Act coming into operation together with the new Declaration
of Rights on 22nd May; without it, there is a risk that many criminal
trials since 22nd May will have been marred by unconstitutional
procedures. Just as important is the failure to have a new law for
the National Prosecuting Authority [NPA] in place by 22nd August,
when the new Constitution
transferred responsibility for prosecutions from the Attorney-General’s
Office to the NPA and the Prosecutor-General; the Secretary for
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs has assured the public
that the Ministry is prioritising this Bill.
Other
Bills to align existing laws with the new Constitution
A report back on this subject is expected from the Ministry of Justice,
Legal and Parliamentary Affairs when the Senate resumes consideration
of Senator Marava’s motion calling for the expeditions harmonisation
of existing laws with the Constitution and the implementation of
the Constitution, particularly those provisions seeking to uplift
the status of women. Since Senator Marava introduced his motion,
an Inter-Ministerial Committee has been appointed to oversee the
preparation by Ministries of Bills to bring all existing laws into
line with the new Constitution. Professor Jonathan Moyo, Minister
of Media, Information and Broadcasting Services has already said
he will have the law of criminal defamation repealed [The criminalisation
of defamation is a long-standing curb on freedom of expression.
The Constitutional Court has recently heard argument in a case in
which the editor of The Standard newspaper asked for the criminal
defamation section of the Criminal
Law Code to be nullified for inconsistency with the old Constitution.
The court’s decision is awaited.]
In Parliament
last week
National
Assembly
The National
Assembly did not sit last week. Its last sitting was on Thursday
17th October. It will next sit on Tuesday 5th November, with its
members fresh from the four-day Pre-Budget Seminar at the Victoria
Falls that ends on Sunday.
Senate
Sitting times
Tuesday 15th
October - 18 minutes; Wednesday 16th October -63 minutes; Thursday
17th October -98 minutes
Tuesday’s
18-minute sitting attracted adverse public comment. Senators did
better on Wednesday, better still on Thursday with a lively Question
Time.
Motions
On 22nd October
Senator Mathuthu briefly wound up debate on her motion presenting
the report by the Zimbabwe delegates to the 62nd Session of the
Executive Commission of the African Parliamentary Union [APU] held
in Cote d’Ivoire at the end of September.
On 23rd October
there were three contributions to the ongoing debate on the President’s
speech opening
Parliament. Senator Chizema’s remarks blaming sanctions on
MDC-T attracted spirited heckling, prompting a rebuke from the President
of the Senate: “Order, order, this is a House of Hon. Senators,
you are allowed to interject but if you shout like the senator at
the back there - like you are in a beer hall, I will not stand it,
I will have to send you out, so be warned.”
On 24th October
notice was given of two new motions to be moved by MDC-T Senators
when the Senate resumes on 19th November:
- Major roads
-the motion by Hon Siphiwe Ncube refers to the damage to the country’s
road network done by heavy duty goods trucks and to the prevalence
of fatal road accidents, and calls on government to take steps
to prohibit the presence of heavy trucks on highways at certain
times of day, and to resuscitate the railway system as a way of
addressing the carnage problem.
- Cancer policy
- the motion refers to October being breast cancer month, and
recommends that the government comes up with a clear policy document
in respect of “awareness, counselling, screening for cancer,
the treatment of cancer and charges to be levied on cancer patients”.
Question
Time [Thursday]
Questions without
notice took up the whole hour allocated by Standing Orders and were
addressed to the Deputy Minister of Media, Information and Broadcasting
Services, Mr Mandiwanzira, the Deputy Minister of Public Service,
Labour and Social Welfare, Mr Muzenda, and the Minister of Primary
and Secondary Education, Mr Dokora. Mr Mandiwanzira spoke about
ZBC listeners licence fees [which he defended as mere statutory
fees, not payment for ZBC programmes] and the place of all indigenous
languages in broadcasting; and deplored “adult” content
in cell phone apps [which he said was a matter for the Minister
of Information Communication Technology] and in the pages of Zimpapers
H-Metro newspaper [which he said his Ministry would take up with
the newspaper’s producers].
Mr Dokora dealt
with queries about school fees [confirming the policy that no pupil
should be turned away for non-payment of fees]; inadequate school
structures in resettlement areas [raising the possibility of public/private
partnerships as a means of improving the situation]; and the poor
standard and quality of the language used in the Ndebele Grade 7
examination paper.
Written
questions with notice
Mr Mandiwanzira
agreed that outside “pirate” radio stations broadcasting
into Zimbabwe and damaging its image are a nuisance to be got rid
of; he suggested that once ZBC radio transmissions reach the whole
country and the TV digitilisation programme had been completed,
and once more local private broadcasting stations have been licensed,
nobody will bother to tune in to the short-wave pirate broadcasts.
Mr Dokora explained
that the new primary school learning period is nine years [up from
the previous seven] and has two modules: “infant school”
for the four to seven year olds and including Grades 1 and 2 for
the six and seven year olds; and “junior school” for
the eight to twelve year olds, Grades 3 to 7.
Question
Mark over Electricity Amendment Act
The Electricity
Amendment Act, which was rushed through Parliament in June, was
gazetted by the President’s Office on 18th October as Act
5/2013 [available from Veritas]. This short Act called for the division
of the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company
into two separate companies. A few days later in a story headlined
Plot to kill ZESA flops, the Herald:
- characterised
the Act as a sinister plot by the former MDC-T Minister, to surrender
the power sector to Western private enterprise, and quoted the
new Minister, Mr Mavhaire, as saying the Government had no plans
to dismantle ZESA [The former MDC-T Minister’s lawyers have
demanded a retraction. The story certainly gives a greatly exaggerated
description of the effect of the Act, obviously based on a misreading
of its terms and on ignorance of the history of ZESA unbundling
since it started in 2002.]
- reported
that the Secretary to Parliament had demanded that the Registrar
of the High Court return the enrolled copy of the Act, because
the President’s assent had been given more than 21 days
after it had been presented for his assent. [Both the former and
the new Constitution require the President to decide whether or
not to assent to a Bill within 21 days of receiving it but there
has always been ambiguity about what is meant by the President
“receiving” it.]
Present
situation - Act still in force
This is an extraordinary
situation. There is nothing in the Constitution, nor is there a
Zimbabwean precedent, that allows the recall by Parliament of an
Act that has been signed by the President, gazetted and enrolled
in the High Court. For the time being, the appropriate attitude
is that the gazetting of the Act as law under GN 501/2013, remains
valid. Further developments are awaited with interest.
Kereke
reinstated as MP by Constitutional Court
On 3rd October
the Speaker declared Dr Kereke’s Bikita West National Assembly
seat vacant in terms of section 129(1)(k) of the Constitution, with
effect from 30th September. This followed the Speaker’s receipt,
from the Zanu-PF Secretary for Administration, of written notification
that Dr Kereke had been expelled from the party. Dr Kereke promptly
applied to the Constitutional Court for the declaration to be set
aside, claiming that section 129(1)(k) was not applicable to his
situation. Ahead of the urgent hearing of the case by the Constitutional
Court on 23rd October, there were negotiations between the lawyers
representing Dr Kereke and the party, resulting in agreement that
the vacancy declaration should be set aside and Dr Kereke reinstated.
On 23rd October in a brief hearing the court granted an order in
the terms agreed between the parties: “The termination of
the membership of Parliament for the applicant by the first respondent
(Speaker of National Assembly) dated October 3, 2013 is null
and void and is hereby set aside. Applicant is a member of the
National Assembly.”
Government
Gazette
Acts
Money Laundering
and Proceeds of Crime Act - the revised version of this important
Act is now available from the Government Printer.
Note: a revised
version is one prepared by the Law Reviser in terms of the Statute
Law Compilation and Revision Act to bring an Act up to date and
correct textual errors. The substance of the Act as passed by Parliament
remains the same. Once officially released the revised version becomes
the authentic version of the law for all purposes. The originally
gazetted Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Act contained many
textual errors that required the Law Reviser’s attention.
The law revision process is expressly sanctioned by the Constitution
which the attempt to recall the Electricity Amendment Act by Parliament
[see above] is certainly not.
Income Tax Act
- Page proofs are once again being checked by Parliament and the
drafter.
Statutory
Instruments [SIs]
No SIs were
published in the Government Gazette of 25th October.
General
Notices [GNs]
GN 510/2013
notifies the inclusion in the Gazette dated 25th October of the
Government’s financial statements for the month of August
2013.
Veritas
makes every effort to ensure reliable information, but cannot take
legal responsibility for information supplied
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