Lindiwe Ndhlovu was arrested in March 2022 and charged with
deliberate transmission of HIV.
Ndhlovu, through her lawyer Paidamoyo Saurombe from the
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), filed an application for removal from
further remand following the decriminalisation of wilful HIV transmission.
“High Court judge Justice Fatima Maxwell has stopped the
prosecution of a Harare woman, who is on trial at Harare Magistrates Court on a
charge of deliberate transmission of HIV as defined in section 79 of the
Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act,” the ZLHR said in a statement.
“On Tuesday, Justice Maxwell ordered that criminal
proceedings against the 44-year-old Harare woman should be stopped pending the
determination of an application for review of the decision by Harare magistrate
Taurai Manuwere, who insisted on proceeding with the trial of the woman on a
charge which no longer exists as section 79 of the Criminal Law (Codification
and Reform) Act was repealed after President (Emmerson) Mnangagwa signed the
Marriages Amendment Bill decriminalising wilful transmission of HIV.”
Her lawyers argued that section 70(1)(1) of the
Constitution provides that no person may be convicted of an act or omission
that is no longer an offence.
They also argued that the law under which the woman was
being charged was repealed.
In April 2022, Zimbabwe became the second country in Africa
to fully repeal its HIV-specific criminal law after the Marriages Amendment
Bill was signed into law.
Prior to the legislation’s passage, deliberate transmission
of HIV attracted a sentence of up to 20 years in prison under section 79 of
Zimbabwe’s Criminal Code.
The statute was, however, seldom enforced. Newsday
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