(HERALD) Constitutional Bill gazetted
Constitutional Bill gazettedHerald Reporter
MAJOR constitutional changes were formally proposed yesterday to harmonise Presidential and Parliamentary terms, turn an expanded House of Assembly into an almost purely elected chamber with all chiefs and provincial governors moved to the Senate, and establish an independent Human Rights Commission.
The Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (Number 18) Bill was gazetted yesterday and can be debated in Parliament next month after all have had time to study the proposals. It needs two-thirds approval of the membership of both the House of Assembly and the Senate to become law. Zanu-PF can, with chiefs and Presidential appointees, ensure such a majority in both Houses.
The Bill expands the size of both Houses of Parliament. It proposes making the Delimitation Commission the sole body that decides constituency boundaries with the President’s power limited to simply asking it to reconsider. The first major change is to harmonise the terms of the President and Parliament, and reduce the maximum length of a Presidential term to five years.
When the President dissolves Parliament, which he can do at any time within its five-year term, he automatically triggers a new Presidential election on the same day as the Parliamentary election.
The only two provisions are that the President remains in office until a successor is sworn in and that if the President dies, resigns or is removed from office in terms of the Constitution, the members of the House of Assembly and Senate, sitting as a joint electoral college, shall elect a successor to hold office until the next Parliamentary poll.
At present, a vacancy in the Presidential office has to be filled with a full Presidential election within 90 days.
The President has to be sworn into office by the head of the Supreme Court or High Court within 48 hours of the result of a Presidential election being announced.
Parliament itself sees major changes in its composition. The net result of the proposed changes to Parliament will see the House of Assembly being almost entirely directly elected, a large drop in the numbers, and an even bigger drop in the percentage, of legislators appointed by the President, and the movement of all chiefs and governors to the Senate.
The new House of Assembly will have 210 members, 200 elected in single-member constituencies and 10 appointed by the President, making more than 95 percent of the House directly elected.
The present 150-member House has a far smaller percentage of elected members with 120 MPs elected in constituencies, eight chiefs elected by the chiefs of the rural provinces, 10 Provincial Governors, all appointed by the President and sitting in Parliament while in office, and 12 MPs appointed by the President for the life of a Parliament.
The Senate will become the new home of all chiefs and governors in Parliament. The new 84-member Senate will have the following composition:
50 senators elected by the voters, five from each province;
Two being the President and Deputy President of the Council of Chiefs;
16 chiefs, two from each non-metropolitan province, elected by the chiefs of that province;
10 Provincial Governors;
Two Presidential appointees to represent Harare and Bulawayo Provinces, the two provinces without elected chiefs; and
Four other Presidential appointees.
The present Senate has 66 senators, 50 elected in provincial constituencies, the two top chiefs, and a far larger group of Presidential appointees.
The 50 directly elected senators will each be elected within a single-member constituency as at present. The Delimitation Commission will create five in each of the 10 provinces. Each senatorial constituency will either be the same as an Assembly constituency or will be made up of two or more contiguous Assembly constituencies.
Special functions will be given to each House of Parliament. The Assembly will have the sole right to vote on motions of no confidence and states of emergency.
When the President rejects the recommendation of the Public Service Commission over the appointment of a Permanent Secretary, or the Judicial Service Commission over the appointment of a judge, he will inform the Senate, not both Houses as he has to do at the moment.
The Bill proposes Zimbabwe follows the recommendation of the United Nations that all countries have a human rights commission.
The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission will have nine members appointed by the President and Parliament together.
It will work closely with the Public Protector, the new title of the Ombudsman.
The chairman of the commission must be a lawyer of at least five years’ standing and is appointed by the President after consultation with the Judicial Service Commission, the same independent body that advises the President on the appointment of judges.
Parliament’s top Committee on Standing Rules and Orders, on which all parties with legislators are represented at a senior level, will nominate 16 people and the President will choose the other eight members of the commission from this list, ensuring that at least four are women.
The commission will:
Promote awareness and respect for human rights;
Promote development of human rights and freedoms;
Monitor and assess the observance of human rights;
Recommend to Parliament effective measures to promote rights and freedoms;
Investigate anyone alleged to have violated the Declaration of Rights; and
Assist the Minister responsible to draw up his report to any regional or international body that can receive such reports under treaties to which Zimbabwe is a party.
The commission will be allowed to take over investigations launched by the Public Protector or refer any matter to this officer for investigation.
Parliament is given authority under the proposals to enact a law that will allow the commission to conduct investigations on its own authority, visit prisons, refugee camps and the like, inspect places where the mentally ill or intellectually handicapped are detained, and provide redress for violations of human rights and social injustice.
In the Bill, the title of the constitutional post of Commissioner of Police will be altered to Commissioner-General of Police while that of the Ombudsman will changed to Public Protector, a title easier to understand.
The Minister of Information and Publicity, Dr Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, yesterday said the Cabinet approved the proposals in the Bill on Tuesday this week.
"Cabinet approved the proposed Constitutional Amendment Bill. The issue of the senators, which was the sticking point, was dealt with. The senators will only be chosen through elections, not any other way,’’ Dr Ndlovu told our Bulawayo Bureau.
"The proposed amendment will now be taken to Parliament.’’
Earlier, there had been proposals from the ruling party, Zanu-PF, for the selection of senators through a system of proportional representation.
Dr Ndlovu explained the increase in the number of constituencies.
"The rationale is that some constituencies are too big. You have to travel 100 kilometres in one constituency and that makes it difficult for a Member of Parliament to service the constituency, especially in rural areas,’’ Dr Ndlovu said.
"We want the MPs to be close to the people. They should be able to reach out to the people. There is no sinister motive at all.’’
The minister scoffed at suggestions in some sections of the private Press that the promulgation of the amendment was meant to scuttle the proposed dialogue between Zanu-PF and the British-sponsored opposition party, MDC, under the SADC initiative being led by South African President Thabo Mbeki.
"The constitutional amendment is not related to the talks between Zanu-PF and MDC. We started the process long before talk of the talks. We are going ahead with that process as Government; it has no relation to the Mbeki initiative. In fact, the initiative should not cloud our State programmes. It (constitutional amendment) did not come now,’’ Dr Ndlovu said.
He said Zimbabwe had a good record of holding elections timeously and properly since the attainment of independence in 1980.
"We have the experience and expertise to hold elections properly and on time unlike other countries where you hear that the polls have been postponed because the country was not ready or ballot boxes were stolen. We hold elections constitutionally, that is why even now we are making the necessary constitutional amendment,’’ Dr Ndlovu said.
Labels: CONSTITUTION, THE HERALD
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