I MISSED studying law at the University of Zimbabwe by a single point. Perhaps if I had become a lawyer, I would be even harsher in my criticism of the Zimbabwe Law Society’s (ZLS) position on Constitutional Amendment No 3 Bill (CAB 3). So yes, I speak as a non-lawyer. But you do not need a law degree to see what many lawyers, in this case, chose not to confront.
Lawyers are supposed to be brave defenders of the Constitution and democracy. To be fair, ZLS showed courage in some parts of its submission. But when the very foundations of our democratic system are under attack, it did not go far enough.
The problem is that ZLS approached CAB 3 too narrowly. It seemed to ask only this: does any clause openly contradict another part of the Constitution or break procedure? That is a very small test for such a big national issue. And if that is the test you use, you will almost always find very little wrong.
So ZLS ends up treating the following as raising “no substantive concerns”:
removing the people’s right to directly elect the President
extending presidential and parliamentary terms from five years to seven
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weakening the Defence Forces’ duty from “upholding the Constitution” to merely acting “in accordance with” it
abolishing the Zimbabwe Gender Commission
scrapping the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission.
These are not minor technical changes. These are pillars of the democratic system created by the 2013 Constitution.
ZLS also failed to seriously engage with important regional and international democratic principles. The African Charter on Democracy warns against constitutional changes that undermine democratic government. Sadc principles speak clearly about democratic elections. Across the world, courts are increasingly recognising what is called the “basic structure doctrine” — the idea that there are some parts of a constitution you cannot destroy, even through amendments, because they are the soul of the constitutional order itself.
The doors were there. ZLS barely walked through them.
More importantly, ZLS failed to confront the combined effect of CAB 3.
Step by step, more power shifts towards the Executive. Elections move closer to executive influence. Delimitation moves closer to executive influence. Judicial appointments become more vulnerable to political control. Prosecutorial authority shifts closer to the Executive. Traditional leaders are pulled deeper into partisan politics. Presidential term limits are weakened. And in the end, the President will no longer be directly chosen by the people.
Taken one by one, each change can be dressed up as an “administrative adjustment”. But constitutions are not just collections of clauses. They are guardrails against abuse of power. Their spirit matters just as much as their wording.
CAB 3 is not ordinary constitutional reform. It is the slow dismantling of the democratic foundation of the 2013 Constitution.
Sadly, the ZLS submission may give comfort and intellectual cover to those determined to dismember the 2013 Constitution piece by piece while claiming to act within the law.
The real tragedy is not simply that ZLS found little wrong with CAB 3. It is that it used an approach almost designed to find little wrong.
Zimbabwe deserved more from its lawyers.