THE second amendment to the Constitution sailed through Senate yesterday, easily making the two-thirds majority with a 65-10 vote and with a group of MDC-T senators joining the Zanu-PF senators and the traditional leaders.
During the Committee Stage last week 19 senators, all from
the MDC-T, voted against a single clause that would allow High Court and
Supreme Court judges to be promoted without having to go through a second
public hearing.
The 19 approved all the other measures. It appears that
nine of this group then decided that their support for the raft of other
measures outweighed their dislike of one clause, and so having registered their
dislike in the Committee Stage on that one item voted for the package of
amendments as a whole in the Third Reading.
MDC-T leader Sen Douglas Mwonzora was more precise. He said
the women senators from his party liked the extension of the process for extra
women MPs more than they disliked the judge clause.
The provision of these extra seats reserved for women and
elected on party lists for the life of two more Parliaments, was due to expire
before the next election. It was put in place as a temporary measure to cover
the period until cultural shifts would produce gender balance.
Most MPs and senators now believe another decade of the
measure is required before any change can be contemplated.
Gender equality is achieved in the Senate, outside the
block of traditional chiefs, by insisting that parties on their party lists
alternate candidates by gender.
After Senate Deputy President Mike Nyambuya announced the
results saying they satisfied the two-thirds Constitutional requirement,
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi described the
passage of the Bill as historic while Sen Mwonzora said he would accept the
result.
Besides extending the life of the extra women’s seats in
the National Assembly and removing the need for judges to compete in public
when seeking promotion, the amendment Bill adds 10 specially elected youth MPs
and retains the present system of a President appointing the vice-presidents
rather than allow a clause that would have come active at the next election
whereby the President and two vice-presidents would stand together on a single
ticket at the election.
The Bill extends tenure of medically fit judges to 75 years
and gives impetus to Government’s devolution agenda by separating MPs and
senators from the provincial councils.
Addressing Senate soon after the passage of the Bill,
Minister Ziyambi said: “I want to thank Honourable Senators for this historic
occasion in the sense that we debated together, historic in that we did a good
job.”
He said the amendments were as a result of the realisation
that the 2013 Constitution had some errors that needed to be attended to.
“I am also elated that we can now plan for the 2023
elections both as political parties and as Government.
“We can now pursue the devolution agenda as enunciated by
His Excellency President Mnangagwa,” said Minister Ziyambi.
In an interview, Sen Mwonzora said his party accepted the
result but would push for negotiations.
“When you look at the vote that has happened, the majority
of the women including those from the MDC-T voted for the Bill. It is clear
that they were voting for the women’s quota.
“It is not a typical Bill that a leader of a political
party would whip people because doing so would be like whipping them against
their gender.
“Having said that, we say this is a vote and the majority
prevailed and to that extent, we accept the result with our disappointment,” he
said.
He said while they agreed with several issues in the Bill
such as the women and youth quotas, they were not happy with the removal of the
running mates clause and the extension of judges’ tenure. Herald
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