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TODAY is World Press Freedom Day and journalists across the world will commemorate the day set aside to celebrate their work. Zimbabwe has made great strides in promoting freedom of the press with the new Bill of Rights in the Constitution ensuring that journalists can carry out their work without hindrance.
The government has also been vocal in calling for the repeal of certain legislation that criminalises the journalism profession and we applaud the Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services for spearheading efforts to remove criminal defamation from the country’s statutes. Some of the laws that still contain sections that criminalise defamation are the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act and Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
A number of journalists have been arrested for flouting these laws and we believe efforts should be made to repeal certain sections that criminalise the journalism profession. Professor Jonathan Moyo, the Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services has said criminal defamation will go with Section 96 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act [Chapter 9:23] (the Criminal Law Code) being repealed following extensive consultations with stakeholders in the media industry. In an interview with the Sunday Mail earlier this year, he said the codification of criminal defamation in our common law was a major concern for the media fraternity and the issue had been repeatedly raised in the engagement with the media industry.
Prof Moyo said there was a need for wider and deeper consultations on the matter within and outside government. “Even so, I am happy to say without any equivocation and without any fear of being contradicted that based on the views we have heard from our engagement with the media industry, given the progressive nature of the new Bill of Rights in our new Constitution and particularly based on the values and ideals of our heroic liberation struggle whose recognition is now enshrined in our new Constitution, I honestly believe that the time has come to remove criminal defamation from our system of justice in the national interest.
“As a ministry that oversees the media industry which is the most affected by criminal defamation, we are persuaded and therefore convinced that the days of having criminal defamation in our statutes now lie in the past. Indeed, and although we are not the authority with the power to interpret the law, we nevertheless believe that the constitutionality of criminal defamation under our country’s new constitutional dispensation is questionable, especially given the inherent vagueness of the criteria which are supposed to be used to decide whether the defamation was sufficiently serious to justify the invocation of the criminal sanction.”
Even though Section 96 is yet to be repealed, we believe that consultations on that matter are still ongoing and the law will soon be a thing of the past. In the Sunday Mail interview, Prof Moyo said intimations with the players in the media fraternity had shown that there was strong suspicion that the criminal defamation law had been abused by “some powerful or vested and well-connected political interests in society who have taken advantage of the wide scope of criminal defamation to either advance personal interest or to seek to fix perceived personal enemies under the convenient but false if not corrupt cover of the State”.
As if to confirm these suspicions, last month two staffers at the Daily News, Group Editor Stanley Gama and Senior Reporter Fungi Kwaramba were arrested at the instigation of businessman Kamal Khalfan over stories linking the Omani citizen to alleged underhand deals in Zimbabwe. Prof Moyo condemned their arrest saying it was unnecessary and individuals should not pursue “personal matters” through the courts. He said those aggrieved by the publication or broadcast of allegedly defamatory statements must pursue remedies through a civil action, and not file a criminal complaint.
As we join the rest of the world in celebrating World Press Freedom Day, the government is also on a crusade to end the polarisation of the media by encouraging the upholding of strong ethical values in the profession. It has established the Information and Media Panel of Inquiry (IMPI) to promote and elevate the standards of media practice in Zimbabwe. The panel is currently on a nationwide tour to look into challenges affecting media operations and identify opportunities and prospects for the industry.
The future therefore looks bright for the media industry in Zimbabwe with the opening up of the airwaves and establishment of private players in the television industry complementing great strides that have been made in the print industry and radio. The 2015 digitalisation deadline will find Zimbabwe having achieved a lot in terms of broadcasting.
Digitalisation of broadcasting services will open up the airwaves to address public concerns about lack of media plurality in Zimbabwe. Freedom of the Press is alive and well in Zimbabwe.
Online Reporter