The Sunday Mail
Extra Reporter
The exemption of women from the death penalty creates gender discrimination and has no legal or moral justification, a law expert said last week.
ln 2013, Zimbabwe adopted a new Constitution that restricts death-eligible offences to aggravated murder but exempts women and men under the age of 21 and those over 70 years from capital punishment.
Experts question the reasoning behind the partial moratorium saying the same Constitution states that everyone is equal before the law.
Legal expert, Mr Proceed Manatsa, said the law creates the impression that the exempted groups are not capable of aggravated murder when that is not true.
“There is no legal or moral justification behind the exemption of women from the death penalty, it only creates an impression that there is discrimination against men,” he said.
“I would understand if this applied to pregnant women only. The rest should face the law like everyone else.
“The same goes for men who are over 18 years but less than 21 years. If we are saying at 18 one is an adult who can be charged in a court of law should he or she commit an offence, why then are we exempting them from certain punishments? For those above 70 years, an argument of old age can be made.”
Manatsa argued that the huge flaw of the current law is that a man who wishes to commit murder may avoid capital punishment by partnering with a woman, using the latter as an actual perpetrator and proxy knowing fully that the latter enjoys an exemption from the imposition of capital punishment and cannot face the death penalty.
In the end, he said, the man may escape capital punishment for the simple reason that he would be regarded as an accomplice to murder and hence the sentence that is meted out to the actual perpetrator is the one that is meted out unto him.
