Cabinet yesterday approved constitutional amendments that
will see the scrapping of the concept of running mates on Presidential
elections and extend the women’s quota system by another 10 years beyond 2023.
The envisaged changes will also create 10 parliamentary
seats for the youths, among other changes.
This was announced by acting Information, Publicity and
Broadcasting Services Minister Prof Amon Murwira while addressing journalists
on the 37th Cabinet decision matrix.
“Cabinet considered and approved Principles for the
Amendment of the Constitution of Zimbabwe (No. 20 Act, 2013) which was
presented by the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. The
Principles have been prompted by the need to amend provisions that are
perceived to be contradictory or conflicting, thereby rendering implementation
of the Constitution inherently problematic. The Principles will also add
entirely new provisions as well as amend the Constitution as follows: to amend
the constitutional provision for Provincial Councils in order to exclude
Members of Parliament in light of the oversight role of Parliament,” said Prof
Murwira, who is Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology
Development Minister.
“The proposals will extend by another 10 years the
provision for the election of the 60 women members in Parliament under
proportional representation following which a further review shall be
conducted, remove provisions of Section 92 of the Constitution relating to the
issue of running mates in accordance with the practice prevailing in the SADC
region; provide for the setting aside of one constituency per province, to be
contested for by the Youth on the basis of proportional representation.”
Explaining the rationale of removing running mates,
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi said the
concept had the effect of creating parallel centres of power.
“You all remember that it was one of the contentious issues
when we had our constitution and it was deferred for 10 years because it is a
borrowed concept from America. It is not even an international best practice
where you have a President given executive authority, we do not ordinarily want
to create a parallel centre of power. We believe it is not desirable on our
constitutional dispensation to create separate centres of power. We would
rather have a President elected by the people and then appoints his team, Vice
President and Cabinet that is the thinking, that is what is practised in
Southern Africa and several countries,” said Minister Ziyambi.
“On the youth quota, the proposal is to increase our seats
by 10 and have each province get one youth representative, so parties will
submit their names of candidates and depending on the votes in the province the
party with the majority will have its candidate in Parliament, so we are not
cutting down on anything.”
Earlier on Prof Murwira said the Government sought to amend
Section 161 of the Constitution to de-link the delimitation of electoral
boundaries from population censuses, provide for the inclusion of the office of
the Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet in the Constitution, provide
for the appointment of the Prosecutor-General by the President, and for the
establishment of the Office of the Public Protector; and amend the heading of
Section 271 of the Constitution by the inclusion of “and Metropolitan
Councils.”
Prof Murwira said Cabinet considered and approved the
Principles of the Proposed Judicial Laws Amendment Bill which was presented
Minister Ziyambi.
He said the Bill seek to amend the Magistrates Court, Labour
and High Court Acts.
Some of the issues related to increasing the jurisdiction
of Magistrates in civil cases to those involving monetary values of $300 000 in
the first instance.
Other issues are to amend the Labour Act to afford Judges
of the Labour Court powers to execute their own judgements, amendment of
Section 93(5)(a) of the Labour Act to include a proviso requiring the joinder
of an employee to an application for the confirmation of a Labour Officer’s
ruling; and amendment of the Magistrates Court Act to increase the power of
review of Regional Magistrates . Herald
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