MDC-T chief whip Innocent Gonese yesterday moved a motion calling upon the Executive to urgently align laws with the Constitution saying the delays had made the legislature idle. SENIOR PARLIAMENTARY REPORTER
Gonese said it was necessary to urgently align laws such as the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act, media laws, the Marriages Act and Customary Marriage Act, other Acts to operationalise commissions, the National Prosecution Authority, as well as to enact a new Constitutional Court Act among many other laws so that they are in conformity with the new Constitution.
“Since we were sworn in in September we have not had a single Bill coming to us as elected representatives and in such circumstances the Executive seems to have gone to sleep,” Gonese said.
“It is incumbent upon us to awaken them so that they bring these pieces of legislation so that we align them to the provisions of the new constititution, but unfortunately the Executive is taking a lackadaisical approach.”
Seconder of the motion Harare West MP Jessie Majome said Zimbabwe could be thrown into a constitutional crisis if the laws were not urgently amended to the new charter.
“We will be sacrificing the rights of children, old people, and the rights to shelter, emergency health care, as well as the right to protect our young girls from being married off at a very young age if there is no enabling legislation. If the executive does not bring alignment of laws before the budget, we will also have a crisis because most laws have fiscal implications,” Majome said.
However, Zanu PF chief whip Joram Gumbo said the MDC-T legislators were being hypocritical because President Robert Mugabe had alluded to the issue when he officially opened Parliament.
“The problem is that my colleagues boycotted the President’s speech and then they come with a series of motions duplicating what the President said. That is hypocrisy,” Gumbo said.
