No joy for death row inmates

Criminals serving life sentences have no right for parole and prison conditions cannot be used as a way to escape liability, the Commissioner-General of Prisons and Correctional Services Major-General (Retired) Paradzai Zimondi has said.

Maj-Gen Zimondi said the Prison Act did not provide for reprieve for inmates serving life sentences.

He was responding to a constitutional application by Obediah Makoni who was condemned to life imprisonment for killing his girlfriend 20 years ago.

In his application, Makoni who is being represented by Mr Tendai Biti of Tendai Biti law firm, cited Maj-Gen Zimondi and Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa as first and second respondents, respectively.

VP Mnangagwa supervises the Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Ministry.

"There are laid down processes wherein inmates serving life sentences and other long-term sentences are assessed through the office of the second respondent," said Maj-Gen Zimondi in his papers also filed at the Constitutional Court.

"If they meet the criteria they can either get pardon, respite, reprieve, commuted or remitted from the President."

Maj-Gen Zimondi said the continued stay of Makoni in prison was not violating the Constitution in anyway.

"Being a good prisoner does not entail one to immediate release and it is not for the applicant to be law unto himself to seek his own release from prison," he said.

"The applicant is seeking to be protected from the law and not protection of the law, this is untenable."

Maj-Gen Zimondi said inmates serving life sentences had their issues dealt with under Section 121 of the Prison Act Chapter 7:11.

He dismissed Makoni's claims of discrimination.

"The parole board which is established in terms of section 113 of the Prisons Act is mandated to deal with prisoners under extended sentence only not prisoners under life sentences," he said.

Makoni is challenging the validity of the life sentence on the grounds that it is torture, inhuman and degrading treatment which violates the Constitution of Zimba- bwe.

He was slapped with a life sentence in April 1995 for murdering his girlfriend after finding her being intimate. Makoni now seeks an order declaring the life sentence without judicial review or parole unconstitutional.

He wants the court to nullify Sections 112 and 115 of the Prisons Act (Chapter 7:11), which he argues contravene sections 51 and 53 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.

Section 51 provides that every person is entitled to inherent dignity in their private and public lives and the right to have that dignity respected and protected, while Section 53 provides for freedom from torture, cruel and inhuman treatment.