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Clemence Manyukwe, News Editor
THE National Assembly’s Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs has proposed a special parliamentary debate on the death penalty.
Tabling the committee’s report in the National Assembly on Tuesday, the committee’s chairperson, Jessie Majome, expressed concern that there are various offences in the Criminal Code that have not been dealt with in the General Laws Amendment Bill that is before parliament.
The justice committee report said among the issues that have not been addressed was the age of consent and the death penalty.
“Parliament should be allowed to fully debate the issue of whether or not Parliament should pass a law that permits the death penalty in accordance with section 48(2) of the Constitution. Or, if Parliament does decide to reinstate the death penalty for murder committed in circumstances of aggravation, then a new provision should be added to set out that the death penalty is not mandatory and the court has a discretion to impose the death penalty after weighing aggravating circumstances against any mitigating circumstances,” said Majome.
MPs said there was a need for adequate consultations on the age of sexual consent.
“Presently, for both crimes, the law provides that a victim below the age of 12 is irrefutably presumed to lack the capacity to consent to the sexual act in question. The law also provides that if a boy or girl above 12 but is 14 and below, the person charged will be guilty of rape or aggravated indecent assault unless there is evidence that the girl or boy was capable of giving consent to the sexual intercourse or the penetrative sexual conduct. There is strong argument for raising the age of consent of these crimes,” added Majome, while presenting the report.
The report said the Constitutional Court ruling in the case of Madanhire & Anor v Attorney-General [2015] ZWCC 02, will require the repeal of criminal defamation contained in section 96 of the Criminal Law Code, but that had not been addressed.
It said another case that has not be dealt with in the Bill was the case of Chimakure & Ors v A-G S-14-13 in which the court ruled as unconstitutional several aspects of the offence of publishing false statements prejudicial to the State.
Other issues that MPs said had not been addressed include lack of a provision for the filling of a vacancy that may occur between general elections in the seat of a senator representing persons with disabilities; the conflict between section 160 and 161 of the Constitution that give ZEC the responsibility of fixing boundaries of wards and constituencies and provision under the Urban Councils and Rural District Councils Acts vesting the responsibility of fixing ward boundaries on the President and Minister responsible for local government as well as the continued staffing of the
Electoral Court by judges of the High Court when Section 183 of the Constitution states that judges cannot be appointed to sit in more than one court and sections 161 and 162 of the Electoral Act constitute the Electoral Court as a court separate from the High Court.
“There was general consensus from stakeholders that the few amendments proposed to the Electoral Act are not nearly as many as are needed. In particular, stakeholders observed that the following issues were left unaddressed: Section 12 of the Electoral Act which requires ZEC to get approval from the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs before accepting a donation as this infringes on ZEC’s constitutionally guaranteed independence in terms of Section 235 of the Constitution, since Ministers are active players in the election process. While section 37B of the Electoral Act envisages the President fixing the dates for the delimitation of constituencies, Section 161(1) of the Constitution confers that responsibility on ZEC,” added the report.
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