Amendment number one ten steps backwards

The greatest undoing of the current government in the past four years has been the failure to align the laws to the new constitution.

Funny excuses have been mentioned by the authorities as to why they have failed to deliver on this legislative duty and expectation.

While delivering a Keynote Address at the official opening of a Constitutional Conference hosted by SAPES in 2015, the Speaker of Parliament Adv Jacob Mudenda said the snail pace of Constitutional Alignment was partly because of the scarcity of skilled drafters in the country. What is shocking is that drafters are available for S164, Cyber Bill and other cruel undemocratic laws.  

He claimed that despite the Universities churning out so many law graduates every year, drafting was a special skill that would need to be instilled on these graduates.

A quick chat with any law school graduate will expose this theory especially its malice filled DNA, as a matter of fact every student goes through a process of clinical and practical skills training which is a yearlong drafting intensive experience.

That aside the government does not show any sign of lacking drafting personnel when it comes to legislation for the purposes of narrow, selfish, partisan and factional agendas.  

The zeal demonstrated by Vice President Mnangagwa on Amendment Number One is Exhibit A to our contention.   

More importantly the effort being made to amend the constitution is one that does not add value in the efficacy of the justice delivery system of the country. It is a piece of law with no intention to change the lives of the ordinary masses.

Modern legislation is one that is meant to protect the governed from abuse by the governors, the agenda served by Amendment Number One is to the contrary.

The People's Democratic Party is annoyed by the fact that over 4 million people who voted in a referendum are being held at ransom by a few power hungry individuals in ZANUPF who want to settle personal scores using the law of the land.

The law must live beyond the intentions and lives of individuals, the agenda being pursued by ZANUPF will only create a need to restart the constitutional process of which millions of dollars were invested in writing the current constitution.

ZANUPF ensured the people of Zimbabwe did not get the best constitution they deserved, that was bad enough; the masses do not deserve anything worse than that.

The PDP in the Holistic Program for Economic Transformation (HOPE) highlights that finishing the unfinished business of constitutional reform is a pillar of development in the country.

We state the need to do away with an imperial President provided for in Chapter five of the Constitution. We also stated the need to adopt proportional representation as a way to elect Members of Parliament who then elect the President to avoid the larger than the State kind of characters.

These checks and balances are sadly an enemy of ZANUPF which is now abusing its majority in parliament to jettison the progressive clauses of the constitution.

ZANUPF is a danger to the development of a constitutional democracy in Zimbabwe it is therefore an obligation for all Zimbabweans to unite and deal with ZANUPF once and for all.    

Together Another Zimbabwe is Possible