The Sunday Mail
Tendai Chara
Exactly a year after the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs announced that it was going to present to Parliament more pieces of legislation for re-alignment with the new Constitution, stakeholders are not impressed by the speed of the re-alignment process.
Announcing Government’s intention back then, Mrs Virginia Mabhiza, the Justice Ministry’s permanent secretary, admitted that aligning the laws with the Constitution is a mammoth task.
“As Ministry of Justice, we take this task very seriously and we are very committed to it . . . This is, however, a mammoth task,” Mrs Mabhiza said then.
A year has since passed and stakeholders have expressed their views at the rate at which the process has been handled so far.
Most stakeholders are of the view that the process is taking too long. Others have lost patience and have taken some of the cases to the Constitutional Court.
A flurry of court cases challenging the constitutionality of some of the laws have since been heard at the Constitutional Court.
Of late, the Labour Act has been under the microscope, with sections of the Act such as the one that only allows women that would have been at an organisation for at least a year to enjoy the right to fully-paid maternity leave being contested.
A section of the Act that gives employees a maximum of three periods of maternity leave with one employer has also been challenged.
The General Secretary of the Civil Service Employees Association, Ms Emelda Mhuriro, approached the Constitutional Court arguing that particular sections of the Labour Act were discriminatory and in violation of the Constitution.
She argued that Section 65 (7) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe guaranteed unlimited right to maternity leave to all female employees but Section 18(1) of the Labour Act and Section 39 (1) and (3) and (4) of the Public Service Regulations, Statutory Instrument 1 of 2000, set conditions for the enjoyment of the right, thereby discriminating against newly employed women.
The case is still pending.
The General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAWPUZ) acting secretary-general, Mr Golden Magwaza said the Labour Act should be “urgently” aligned with the Constitution.
“Sections of the Labour Act marginalises workers. It reduces workers to virtual slaves. There is an urgent need to realign this Act with the constitution,” Mr Magwaza said.
However, efforts have been made to align the Labour Act. The Labour Amendment Bill has been tabled.
According to the Zimbabwe Legal Information Institute, the Labour Amendment Bill is meant to align labour laws with the constitution (Section 65 on Labour rights) and also to promote local industry’s productivity and competitiveness.
According to the institute, a consultative process was carried out between Government, labour and business.
The tripartite partners came up with a draft Amendment Bill which, when passed into law would help the cause of the worker.
Meanwhile, the debate over the imposition of the death penalty has led to another Constitutional Court challenge in which some detainees are challenging their death sentences.
Close to 15 detainees who were sentenced to death are expected to appear before the Con-Court as they seek to challenge the penalty.
Lawyer Mr Tendai Biti who is representing the detainees want the death penalty eliminated from the Zimbabwean law.
