CONSTITUTIONAL law expert Lovemore Madhuku has expressed scepticism over the success of legal challenges to amendments to the country’s charter, saying that the only way to stop the amendments would be for people to take to the streets in protests.
Madhuku said this on Wednesday during a virtual public
discussion facilitated by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network. Zimbabwe
recently effected two controversial amendments to the Constitution.
The Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment No 1 Act seeks to
alter the way the Chief Justice, the deputy Chief Justice and the Judge
President of the High Court are appointed.
These key appointments will now be made by the President in
consultation with the Judicial Service Commission.
Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment No 2 Act makes
provisions for the President to handpick his running mates, while it also
extends the retirement age of judges to 75 years, and stipulates that the
women’s quota system will end in 2033, among other provisions.
“There are two remedies to challenge the two constitutional
amendments. There is the political
remedy, which is always the best. Citizens would say no to the amendments and
organise a political action to challenge them.
“The matters are going to be heard at the courts.
Obviously, there will be difficulties in getting the matters into the courts as
they would have to decide the matters on the basis of the overall political
framework. We might end up clearly not getting any successful legal action and
end up adopting the changes that have taken place,” Madhuku said.
He bemoaned lack of citizen participation in politics,
which has resulted in failure to challenge constitutional infringements.
“There is no sufficient political activity in Zimbabwe at
the moment, which explains why we are opting to go to the courts. In a normal
framework where there is political activity, we would not have been having
these discussions in a small corner, with few individuals who have always been
vocal on those matters,” he said.
Another law expert Alex Magaisa said although he concurred
with Madhuku on the issue that the political remedy was the best way to
challenge the amendments, he still believed that legal action was necessary.“Challe
nging the matter was necessary to make the Judiciary and
the Executive accountable. But the outcome is probably known in advance. Given
the events that have been happening in the judicial system, there is no
illusion that there will be a miracle to have the amendments overturned.
“We are aware that if the situation in Zimbabwe was in some
societies, we could have seen people flocking to the streets — thousands of
them, challenging the amendments. That is the weakness of our Zimbabwean
society. Politics is about courage in facing and challenging injustices,”
Magaisa said.Constitutional experts said challenging constitutional amendments
through the courts of law would be a mammoth task due to lack of independence
of the judicial system in the country. Newsday
0 comments:
Post a Comment