The Sunday Mail
Mrs Virginia Mabhiza
The Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs has a mandate to coordinate alignment of laws to the Constitution.
Section 324 of the national Constitution compels the State to ensure that all constitutional obligations are performed diligently and without delay.
As such, when the new Constitution was signed into law, it was envisaged that all Government ministries would, naturally and quickly, identify laws under their purview for review and also formulate policies which would lead to the enactment of new laws, where necessary.
However, this did not happen as expected.
As such, the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, in its coordinating role, identified all the laws that needed alignment through the control list.
It then advised line ministries to look at laws that fall under their ambit and attend to alignment needs if any.
Each line Ministry is, thus, responsible for its laws and the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs is there to assist where necessary.
Some Ministries are sitting on their laws; they do not see the urgency of the alignment process.
This can be attributed to the fact that Zimbabwe’s Constitution does not contain provisions establishing an implementation framework for the Constitution.
It does not provide for an institution that is mandated with the responsibility to oversee its implementation as far as alignment of laws is concerned.
Government, however, upon realising this lacuna took the initiative of establishing an Inter-ministerial Taskforce on Legislative Alignment (IMT) comprising Legal Advisors and Senior State Counsels from various ministries.
The Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs has been tasked with the responsibility of coordinating this process.
Within the ministry, the Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs Department (CPA), the Law Development Commission (LDC) and the Attorney-General’s Office Legal Drafting Department (AGLD) have been specifically mandated to lead the process.
The process entails coordinating the review of legislation by all Government Ministries and providing technical support where required.
Government ministries are expected to initiate the review of laws that they administer.
These three departments of our ministry are presently coordinating the work of the Inter-ministerial Taskforce on the Implementation of the Constitution, with technical and financial support from the Centre for Applied Legal Research and the European Union respectively.
The inter-ministerial taskforce was officially launched on in October 2014 and has to date held innumerable workshops where line ministries have been very cooperative and reported significant progress on alignment of legislation falling under their respective portfolios.
Various Bills have so far been drafted and others are at a consultative stage.
While the major stumbling block has been on consultations due to financial challenges faced by government, the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs has been able to mobilise resources from the European Union for the same.
The alignment process calls for the cooperation of all stakeholders which include Parliament.
One should be mindful of the fact that the law making processes in Parliament is equally long given the need for robust debate to ensure that comprehensive, quality laws are enacted.
As such, there is no way a statute can be crafted overnight as this is against democratic tenets of good governance.
Laws should be taken to the public for consultation as provided for by Section140 of Constitution.
It is therefore a process on its own which takes some time hence the alignment of laws will not go at the pace we would wish it to since there are other factors beyond our control.
These processes coupled with erratic financial resources are some of the hiccups which are hindering a robust legislative alignment process.
However, albeit these challenges, we remain spirited in our endeavours towards a comprehensive legislative review in the short possible time.
The Ministry of Justice is committed to the need for an expedited alignment of all laws to the Constitution.
In that spirit, we also stand ready to play our part in all efforts that will see all laws aligned with the new Constitution.
Line ministries need to know that they have to initiate the alignment of their laws.
They should not wait for the Ministry of Justice to do that on their behalf neither should they wait for court orders for them to take action.
The inter-ministerial taskforce is continuing making initiatives to draft laws for the consideration of line ministries even those who would not have requested, for the alignment process becomes quicker.
The ministry through the taskforce is continuing to whip line ministries into robust action and give them timelines to have their laws aligned to the Constitution so as to avoid having them carry out alignment of laws at their own pace.
Our interest in the alignment of these laws is inherent in our mission to uphold, develop and provide accessible, efficient and effective justice delivery.
On the 396 statutes which were then in the statute book, 183 statutes required alignment and in addition to that, a further 13 new statutes were identified as requiring enactment.
However, of the 183 statutes, 159 have been aligned to the Constitution to date leaving a balance of 23 which are yet to be aligned.
Of the amended statutes, 41 require further alignment hence this gives a total of 64 statutes awaiting alignment.
Of these 64, a total 44 require amendments of a policy nature (which means they have to pass through Cabinet) whilst 20 are of none policy nature.
Mrs Virginia Mabhiza is secretary for Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. She was responding to questions from The Sunday Mail reporter Norman Muchemwa
