adminAuxilia Katongomara Chronicle Reporter
THE Ministry of Justice And Parliamentary Affairs has begun holding consultative meetings on the Zimbabwe and Correctional Services draft Bill. Speaking during a two-day consultative meeting which ended in Bulawayo yesterday, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Mrs Virginia Mabhiza, said the prison system had over the years developed to rehabilitate rather than punish inmates.
“The field of corrections has developed over the last decade. This has seen policies and practices of most correctional jurisdictions being re-aligned and refined so as to execute the duty of integration of offenders with excellence,” said Mrs Mabhiza in a speech read on her behalf by Mr Mupariwa Mukaratirwa , the director of legislative drafting in the Ministry.
“We have therefore found it necessary to combine the process of realignment with the review of the Act in order to come up with a modern Act which upholds human rights and transforms our prison system from being largely punitive to a rehabilitative and correctional system.”
Mrs Mabhiza said the current Prisons Act was outdated as it was last revised in 1996.
“As you may all be aware, most modern correctional jurisdictions now pursue a dual and complimentary goal. On one hand, they attempt to use the resource of imprisonment sparingly for the most serious and persistent offenders while on the other hand an attempt is made to create productive correctional environments where offenders can begin to learn skills, adopt new approaches to coping with daily problems of life and change their criminal attitudes,” she said.
The Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services Deputy Commissioner General, Agrey Huggins Machingauta, said the crafting of the Bill was initiated by the PSC legal Services Directorate.
Dep Comm General Machingauta encouraged people to take part in the consultative meetings in order to come up with a comprehensive law.
“You may want to appreciate that the Prisons and Correctional Services does not exist in isolation, it remains part of the community where inmates come from and return upon release,” he said.
The process is part of efforts to realign legislation with the country’s new constitution.
Present at the workshop were Attorney General Prince Machaya, law lecturer Professor Geoff Feltoe, Chief Public Prosecutor Mrs Rosa Takuva and Assistant Commissioner Naison Chivhayo among other legal experts from the Ministry, prison service and Law Society of Zimbabwe as well as the Centre for Applied Legal Research.
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