Andrew
Online Reporter
ZIMBABWE’S Constitution does not have the provision to allow for prisoners to vote, the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Ziyambi Ziyambi has said.
Prisoners have been seeking an order to compel the authorities to allow them to vote.
Briefing journalists in Harare on Tuesday, Minister Ziyambi said the Constitution of Zimbabwe currently does not allow prisoners to vote.
“Once you become prisoner, certain rights no longer accrue to you and within our current laws our prisoners do not have the right to vote, so if you want the right to vote don’t commit a crime,” he said.
The legal battle between former prisoners, Yvonne Musarurwa, Tungamirai Madzokere and Last Maengahama against the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs started in 2017, but was heard this year after the presiding judge Justice Clement Phiri passed on in January 2021, after reserving judgement in July 2018.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter