×
NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

Need for Parly to overhaul oppressive media laws

News
NEARLY a year after the new Constitution was passed, laws governing the media such as AIPPA, the Official Secrets Act, Posa and the Criminal Law Act and many more have not been amended or overhauled to meet what is envisaged by the new charter.

NEARLY a year after the new Constitution was passed, laws governing the media such as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), the Official Secrets Act, the Public Order, Security Act (Posa) and the Criminal Law (Reform and Codification) Act and many more have not been amended or overhauled to meet what is envisaged by the new charter.

Veneranda Langa

Parliamentarians, especially those in the Portfolio Committee on Media, Information and Broadcasting Services chaired by MP for Umzingwane, Willam Dewa (Zanu PF), have a critical role to play in pushing for the alignment of media laws with the new Constitution to ensure it is done so that citizens enjoy their rights to access information and the media.

Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) board member Kelvin Jakachira told legislators recently at a Misa workshop on the state of the media law and regulation in Zimbabwe that they [MPs] should play a leading role in ensuring criminal defamation was done away with in Zimbabwe.

“The media and the public at large need to ensure that adequate safeguards are put in place to protect the broader public from wanton defamation,” said Jakachira.

“In doing so, it is critical for MPs and other stakeholders to go through the bulk of legislation and call for repeal of those laws that are not in tandem with the Constitution,” he said.

Jakachira said in the past decade there had been little or no change in the legislative framework in terms of issues like access to the media and information, as well as media freedoms due to restrictive pieces of legislation such as the Broadcasting Services Act, Posa, AIPPA and others.

According to media lawyer David Tandiri, media houses had also suffered a lot of criminal defamation lawsuits where even the amounts demanded by the complainants as damages were usually grossly unrealistic.

Some of the amounts demanded by complainants as compensation for alleged damages caused by stories published in the media sum up to millions of dollars.

An example would be the recent $10 million lawsuit against the Daily News by Kamal Khalfan, an Omani resident in Zimbabwe, for the alleged publishing of defamatory articles.

“If most of the criminal defamation lawsuits faced by different media houses were to be granted by the courts, a lot of media houses would be closed by now.  Maybe a mechanism or law should be crafted to control the amount of money complainants can demand as compensation for defamation because some of the amounts are unrealistic,” said Tandiri.

Tandiri said AIPPA had quite a number of inconsistencies with the Constitution, mainly because it was enacted prior to the crafting of the new Constitution.

However, he said wherever there were inconsistencies between AIPPA and provisions of the Constitution, it is what is promulgated by the Constitution which should prevail.

“Therefore, there is now need for us to amend AIPPA so that its provisions take cognisance of the fact that the Constitution is the supreme law.  For example, section 61 of the Constitution says everyone has a right of access to information, but in terms of AIPPA the right to access records is restricted.

“There is need for definition of the word ‘information’ in AIPPA in order for it to encompass all information as AIPPA talks of rights to access records, whereas the Constitution talks of rights to access information, of which information can be in any written form. Technically, information can be stored by way of soft copies and the right to information needs to be expanded to reflect that,” he said.

Tandiri said information can be in different forms like Braille, adding he had a problem with section six of AIPPA which stipulated requests for information should be in written form.

“What it means is that illiterate people are automatically barred from enjoying that provision. I do not know why a request for information should be in English and in written format as the new Constitution recognises 16 indigenous languages. There is need for section six to be amended to make it permissible for requests for information to be oral, by way of Braille, sign language, e-mail or other forms,” he said.

The lawyer also bemoaned amounts charged to allow persons to access some documents saying exorbitant fees hindered access to information.

He said section 14 of AIPPA which protected Cabinet, local authority and public body deliberations was also outdated, saying if such information was made public it would promote accountability, transparency and openness.

“Section 14 of AIPPA contradicts section 62 of the Constitution.  For example, I do not think it will be in the interest of defence or confidentiality for members of the public to be denied access to deliberations pertaining to local authorities. There is no reason why recommendations or advice given to the President by a minister, Parliamentary committee or any other public body should not be accessed by citizens,” he said.

However, Kuwadzana MP Lucia Matibenga (MDC-T) said in-as-much as accountability and transparency would be promoted by letting citizens have access to Cabinet, local authority or any public body minutes, the challenge was that the President and ministers were sworn to official secrecy upon assuming their duties.

“There is a complication in that the President and Cabinet ministers swear to the Official Secrets Act; so how can they give information on Cabinet papers?  Council minutes have always been made public, but one cannot access minutes of council or Parliament committee meetings because they might still be under discussion,” she said.

Tandiri said it was also imperative to amend section 31 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act because it was responsible for creation of criminal defamation.

“With AIPPA, there is no need for us to amend it, the immediate need is to completely substitute it with another piece of legislation in line with the Constitution,” he said.

According to media expert Takura Zhangazha, calls for a complete overhaul or repeal of offensive media laws started way back in 2000 where laws like AIPPA, the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA), and the Interception of Communication Act (ICA) resulted in the closure of newspapers like the Daily News, Tribune, and Radio One which was broadcasting without a licence.

Zhangazha said there was also need for legislators, media practitioners and the general public to understand media laws because there was a tendency to think that shortwave radio transmission was piracy.

“Shortwave radio like Studio Seven is not piracy because it is allowed in terms of international telecommunications law. The only way to stop it is to go to Botswana and South Africa and ask them to stop relaying the signals to Zimbabwe.  Pertaining to contesting the provisions in AIPPA, BSA and the ICA, there has been one success by the Zimbabwe Independent and some failures were also noted,” Zhangazha said.

He said in 2007 the three political parties in the government of national unity (GNU) agreed to amend AIPPA, courtesy of the Sadc facilitation role played by former South African President Thabo Mbeki.

“That is why I was hoping that Mbeki would be given the Order of Munhumutapa or Mapungugwe during the 34th independence celebrations for making the three political parties to agree to amend AIPPA, as well as making Posa a softer law.  There is a long history to media reforms and after the 2008 elections and GNU, the whole negotiation process resulted in licensing of new media in print, radio and some new newspapers like NewsDay have started existing,” he said.

Zhangazha said recent reforms resulted in the Constitution that recognised media freedom, broadcasting and editorial independence.

He said while some political parties purported to fight for freedom of the media, their fight had unfortunately been limited to fighting for space in State-controlled media.

“Political party manifestos have few or no suggestions on how to reform ZBC completely.  What they only have are suggestions on how to get coverage on ZBC.  It is also important that the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Media, Information and Broadcasting should be apprised of issues like appointments to the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) so that they play an active role,” Zhangazha said.

Currently, the Parliament Standing Rules and Orders Committee is seized with issues of opening up vacancies for people interested in sitting in the ZMC.

On trends in the region, Zhangazha said very few countries had ministries of information.  He said they instead preferred to have a department of information — an example being South Africa.

He said there was need for legislators and other media stakeholders to read the Sadc Protocol on Media in order to juxtapose it with the local media environments and see if the environment met what was envisaged in the protocol.

“The role of Parliament is not only oversight.  Technically MPs have a leadership role and that entails ability to discern things and interpret them.  Unfortunately, the media has limited space and cannot cover every MP.  However, MPs should create their own media by utilising social networks.  This does not necessarily mean that you have to tweet on your own. For instance, United States President Barack Obama has people that manage his tweeter or Facebook accounts.  MPs should have their own communication strategies and not wait for journalists to cover them because that time might not come,” Zhangazha said.

He said there was no need for regulations that imposed jail sentences for journalists, adding it was, however, necessary for the media to be responsible and accountable like everybody else.