Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister
Dr Jenfan Muswere said after yesterday’s Cabinet meeting that while approving
the Bill to abolish the death penalty, Cabinet still wanted the new law to
impose lengthy sentences to deter murder.
It was agreed that the circumstances that attracted the
death penalty in the past, where the murder was committed against a prison or
police officer, or a minor or pregnant woman, or was committed in the course of
other serious crimes or where there was pre-meditation, then a suitable severe
penalty was needed.
“In view of the need to retain the deterrent element in
sentencing murderers, it is expected that the new law will impose lengthy
sentences without violating the right to life,” said Dr Muswere.
The Private Member’s Bill was introduced in the National
Assembly last year with the aim of abolishing the death penalty through the
amendment to the Criminal Law Code and the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act.
This was done after countrywide grassroots consultations in
30 districts, three districts in each of the 10 provinces in the country, after
which a report was produced.
“From these consultations, critical comments and views were
expressed for, and against the death penalty,” said Dr Muswere.
The approval of the Bill comes after a moratorium on
executions in the country for more than 18 years, a moratorium led by the
Executive, and with those under sentence of death having their sentences in
time commuted to life imprisonment.
The Constitution protects the right to life, but states
that a law may permit a court, in limited circumstances, to impose the death
penalty on men convicted of aggravated murder.
The new Bill when enacted prohibits courts from imposing a
death penalty and when the Supreme Court hears an appeal against capital
punishment emanating from the High Court, it is obliged to replace it with
another sentence.
Clause two of the Bill states that: “Notwithstanding any
other law no court shall impose sentence of death upon a person for any
offence, whenever committed, but instead shall impose whatever other competent
sentence is appropriate in the circumstances of the case; the Supreme Court
shall not confirm a sentence of death imposed upon an appellant, whenever that
sentence may have been imposed, but instead shall substitute whatever other
competent sentence is appropriate in the circumstances of the case; no sentence
of death, whenever imposed, shall be carried out.”
Clause Three will amend the Criminal Procedure and Evidence
Act by deleting references to the death penalty and repealing sections that set
out how the penalty is to be imposed and carried out.
Clause Four will remove a reference to the death penalty
from section Four of the Genocide Act, which allows it to be imposed for the
crime of genocide.
These prisoners under sentence of death will be brought
before the High Court for re-sentencing, and the court will have power to
impose any appropriate sentence on them, taking into account all the
circumstances including the nature of the crimes they committed, the length of
time they have been in prison awaiting execution, their health and the
likelihood of their committing further crimes.
However, such prisoners can appeal to the Supreme Court
against their new sentences and are allowed to apply to the President for
clemency under Section 112 of the Constitution.
Zimbabwe as an independent nation was wary of the death
penalty from the beginning and had dumped and replaced a multitude of colonial
laws with hanging clauses, even the option of a death penalty for some ordinary
crimes, leaving a death sentence only for murder without extenuating
circumstances.
Hanging required a positive decision by a Cabinet majority
under the 1980 Constitution, and it became apparent during the 1990s that there
was a growing abhorrence of implementing that sentence. Herald
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