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(HERALD) Copac, Professor Moyo face off

Copac, Professor Moyo face off
Saturday, 14 April 2012 19:09
Lincoln Towindo

The Constitution Select Committee on constitution-making (Copac) will meet in Harare tomorrow to determine the course of action to take against Tsholotsho North House of Assembly member Professor Jonathan Moyo whom the panel wants charged with contempt of Parliament and, subsequently, impeached. This follows Prof Moyo’s pointed criticism of the committee in an opinion article published in The Sunday Mail last week.

However, Prof Moyo came out with guns blazing yesterday, saying if Copac wants to charge him “ . . . they will get more than they have bargained for, given that the making of a new constitution is not their personal business but the business of every Zimbabwean . . . ”

Copac co-chairs Mr Douglas Mwonzora (MDC-T) and Mr Edward Mkhosi (MDC) last week said the 25-member panel will seek to have Prof Moyo impeached when Parliament resumes sitting early next month.

“Professor Moyo is clearly in contempt of Parliament. His abuse of Copac has gone beyond fair criticism,” said Mr Mwonzora. The select committee will meet on Monday (tomorrow) where Prof Moyo’s actions, among a host of other pressing issues, will be discussed.

“The committee will seek to have him charged for contempt of the House. At law, he can be charged and we are confident that, if the law is strictly followed, he will be found guilty.

“We are not trying to suppress criticism, but we will not tolerate abuse of the body (Copac).”

Mr Mkhosi said the committee will approach Speaker of the House of Assembly Mr Lovemore Moyo to push the charge through.

“We shall approach the Speaker when sitting resumes next month to thrash out the issue of Prof Moyo’s un-parliamentary behaviour,” he said.

“If he has a bone to chew with the committee, we believe that the right platform to do so will be in Parliament.

“We are confident that even members of Zanu-PF within the committee will support this position. Prof Moyo has no grounds whatsoever to refer to the body as a mafia.”
Contacted for comment yesterday, Prof Moyo said Copac’s contempt threat was in keeping with the contempt it has shown against the views of the people gathered during the outreach programme.

“The views of the people have not officially been published, arguably to enable the Copac mafia to ignore or manipulate them as we have indeed seen happen. The same contempt has been shown in how the Copac mafia has responded against anyone who has said anything critical of Copac’s work or critical of the outcomes of some of its work in progress such as its first working draft constitution unofficially published by The Herald on February 10.

“Critical voices have been routinely labelled as laymen who should not be listened to as if the Copac mafia is unaware of the fact that the overwhelming majority of its own members are not lawyers. Just last week Copac co-chairs publicly labelled their critics as ‘crazy’ and one of them even used national television last Thursday to call critics ‘evil people’

“There can be no greater contempt of the people than this and it is the kind of contempt which cannot go unchallenged in a democratic society such as ours,” charged Prof Moyo. He chronicled three “fundamental points” that he said clearly showed how Copac had assumed the “trappings of a mafia outfit.”

“First, Copac is not a parliamentary process and cannot therefore sustain any charge of contempt of Parliament against anybody. Yes, the formation of Copac was announced in Parliament in 2009 and Parliament was involved in the running of Copac up to the chaotic first stakeholders’ conference.

“After that conference all hell broke loose and Copac literally left Parliament in every sense but name. Since then Copac has not conducted itself in terms of any standing order or rule of Parliament. None whatsoever. Parliament’s presiding officers have had no role whatsoever in Copac. Parliament and its committees are transparent and accountable to Parliament and they debate and vote on issues in terms of standing orders and rules.

“There’s no parliamentary process which is opaque, secretive and conducted as negotiations based on consensus.

“In Parliament and its committees we debate openly to clarify issues and then we vote to arrive at a resolution, but we do not negotiate until the cows come home in the hope of achieving consensus.

“Second, Copac is not a people-driven process contrary to the process made in Article VI of the GPA. Copac has not officially published the views of the people it gathered during the outreach programme. Instead, according to one of its co-chairs Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana, its first working draft constitution unofficially published on February 10 by The Herald had at least 70 percent of its content smuggled onto the draft outside the views of the people.

“Who smuggled this content? Smuggling is mafia business and 70 percent is a very high figure and both considerations justify the conclusion that there’s a Copac mafia that uses the false cover of a people-driven process to smuggle into the draft constitution its own or some dark views typical of mafia-like behaviour.

“Third, while it is clear that Copac is not parliamentary and is not people-driven, it is also clear that it has no other legal foundation or basis in that it is not based on any law governing its operations.

“The best that can be said about Copac is that in de facto terms it has become a political GPA process not governed or protected by any Parliamentary ordinance and not governed or protected by any law of the land given that Article VI of the GPA which sets out the constitution-making process is not a legal part of Constitutional Amendment Number 19,” he said.

Prof Moyo added that Copac structures such as the Management Committee, the Negotiating Forum and the Principals “are not legal at all”.
“They are just political and while what is political may be significant, it cannot by definition be parliamentary or legal simply because it is being done by people whose names were announced in Parliament.”

He concluded: “At best Copac is thus political, not parliamentary and not legal.
“This is why its accountability has been suspect. This is why it has been possible to smuggle, mafia-style, into its first working draft constitution, 70 percent of content not based on the views of the people.

“This is why Copac has not met the deadline to complete its work within 18 months of its formation. This is why the Copac mafia has publicly and arrogantly defied deadlines given to it by the Principals to complete its work. This is why Copac has been involved in endless negotiations in which anything goes.

“In my considered view, that is mafia stuff and if — given the overwhelming evidence which supports it — this view about Copac is not fair comment in a constitutional democracy such as ours then nothing is.”

Labels: COPAC, JONATHAN MOYO, MDC CORRUPTION

posted by MrK @ 4:55 PM