The Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 2) Bill, which proposes a raft of amendments to the Constitution, went through its Second Reading and Committee stage in the Senate yesterday without any further amendment and will go to the Third Reading, the final stage, on Tuesday next week.
Since the amendment has already gone through the National
Assembly with the required two-thirds majority, should it receive that same
level of approval or better in the Senate at the Third Reading, it can then
become part of the Constitution.
The only clause that caused a division, a vote where a
split is recorded, was the clause on allowing judges of the High and Supreme
Courts to be promoted to a higher court without having to go through another
public hearing, as they would have gone
through that process in their original appointment to the bench and it being
felt undignified for judges to publicly compete for promotion.
But 45 senators voted in favour of retaining the new
provision, while only 19 voted against. If, and this is not considered likely
since the 19 joined the majority in approving the other 26 clauses, the same
group votes against the Bill on the Third Reading it will still pass as the 19
are not a large enough group to be a blocking third.
In the Second Reading, where the principles of the Bill are
debated, Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi
outlined for senators the main provisions of the Bill and the reasons why the
proposed amendments were desired.
A major proposal is to retain the present system whereby
the President appoints the vice-presidents. In the Constitution, this was
supposed to change in 2023 to have the President, First Vice-President and
Second Vice-President stand for election as a team.
The present feeling is that the interim system should be
made permanent to allow the President to make the choice.
A second major proposal, which has seen near universal
support, was to retain for another 10 years a special provision to have an
additional block of women MPs in the National Assembly, elected by party lists
using proportional representation in each province.
It had been hoped that in the first decade of the present
Constitution that societies would change sufficiently swiftly to make gender
balance automatic. This has not been the case, hence the desire for another 10
years of an interim measure.
The National Assembly went further, and agreed that a
similar provision, with an additional block of women councillors equal to a
third of the council membership, should be chosen by party lists. The Senate
agreed in the Committee Stage.
For judges, it was felt that sitting judges should not have
to compete with each other in public interviews when being considered for
promotion, this tending to be undignified.
This is the single point where there was a vote later on in
the committee stage. Judges will also be able to serve until they are 75 if
they are fit and willing once the amendment becomes law.
The Prosecutor General will still be appointed in way to
guarantee independence, the President having to follow the advice of the
Judicial Service Commission and with a tribunal appointed to recommend any
dismissal. But the two processes will not be identical to those used for
judges, as it was felt that a judge should retain a higher status.
The last major amendment was to sort out the provincial
councils, with the MPs and senators from each province no longer able to sit on
these councils since Parliament is supposed to oversee the provincial councils
and legislators cannot be judges on themselves. This will also enhance
devolution. Herald
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