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New Constitution-making process - Index of articles
Zim
media laws a concern: AU Rapportuer
Radio VOP
November 01, 2012
Read more on
the VOP website
Advocate Pansy Tlakula, the Special Rapportuer on Freedom of Expression
and Access to Information in Africa and a member of the African
Commission on People's and Human Rights says she is "deeply
concerned by the continued existence of laws that impede the work
of the media in Zimbabwe."
Tlakula told
Radio VOP in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of the inaugural
Carlos Cardoso Memorial lecture at the University of Witwaterstrand
in Johannesburg that Zimbabwe should repeal the laws such as Access
to Information and protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and Public
and Order Security Act (POSA) which continue to impede media
work.
"The new
constitution will not solve all the problems. Even after the new
constitution is put in place, you will still have to deal with all
laws that impede expression like AIPPA, POSA and all the other laws
that are not in conformity with regional and international instruments
that Zimbabwe has ratified," Tlakula who also works as an
advocate of the High Court of South Africa said.
"Those
laws remain a source of concern for us but we are hoping with the
adoption
of the new constitution, the constitutionality of these laws
will be revisited."
In addition
she said, in the meantime journalists in Zimbabwe should fight for
the repeal of these laws and if they are not repealed they will
have to take the fight to the courts.
Asked what she
thinks about the recent move by South African president, Jacob Zuma
to withdraw a lawsuit against popular cartoonist Jonathan Zapiro,
she said, "I am very happy about it, it's a victory
for media freedom in South Africa."
Zuma had been
suing Zapiro following one of his cartoons
which showed him preparing to rape a woman who represented the justice
system in South Africa with the help of his government and political
party members.
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