The clemency order issued in March has been amended by
President Mnangagwa to allow more prisoners to go home almost immediately with
a broadening of the clemency provisions to cut sentences, generally for
non-violent crimes, to time served.
All juveniles, all bed-ridden prisoners, all who have
served at least 20 years of a life sentence, all blind prisoners and all who
are so seriously disabled that they cannot be properly looked after in jail can
be released immediately, with sentences cut to time served.
Those serving life sentences include those originally
sentenced to death with the sentence commuted to life imprisonment, and the
time spent on death row counts towards the 20 years.
Bed-ridden, blind and seriously disabled prisoners need to
be seen by a correctional medical officer or Government medical officer and be
certified that they fall within the categories.
All women prisoners can now be released with sentences cut
to time served unless they were convicted of specified offences, in general of
committing violent crimes, and all men over 60 unless they are in jail for the
same specified offences or have been sentenced to life imprisonment or death.
Finally, prisoners serving effective sentences of 36 months
or less and who have completed at least a quarter of their sentence by
yesterday can now be released with the rest of their term remitted, unless they
are excluded by the sort of offence they committed or because they were previously
released on an amnesty, were sentenced by a court martial, have a record of
escaping.
Under the original amnesty order, women had to have served
at least half their sentence and juveniles at least a third before being
released, lifers had to have served 25 years, the old age benefit for men was
set at 70, and even then they had to have served at least half their sentence,
and those with shorter sentences of 36 months or less had to have served half.
Those convicted of specified offences, unless they are
juveniles, lifers, bed-ridden, blind or disabled cannot benefit from a shorter
sentence and have to serve their full term. The specified offences are murder,
treason, rape or any sexual offence, car-jacking, robbery, stock theft or
public violence.
The broadening of the clemency action is expected to
release a far larger batch of prisoners than the 1 680 of the original order,
with more trickling out since as they meet the conditions of how much of their
sentences they have served.
Prison authorities were hoping the original amnesty would
have allowed the immediate release of 5 000 to bring the prison population down
to below 17 000, the designed capacity of the system, with the health dangers
of overcrowding being of special concern during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The released prisoners have not been pardoned and their
criminal convictions are still on record and if they had a part of their
original sentence suspended, that portion can still be added to any new
sentence if they are re-convicted.
What the President has done is to use the lesser power
given to him by the constitution to reduce a court sentence, while still
retaining the conviction. Herald
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