The laws that killed democracy in Zimbabwe

When Zimbabwe won independence in 1980 Mugabe and his government made the mistake of inheriting the Law and Order Maintainance Act (LOMA) and the State of Emergency (SOE) law that the Rhodesian government had introduced so that they could use it to deal with any political activity by the African majority that had the potential of overthrowing their white minority government. Mugabe and his government should have removed those oppressive laws and then come up with democratic laws but instead for sometime they chose to retain those autocratic laws and used them to crush any opposing voices, for example the crushing of ZAPU supporters in Matebeleland and Midlands during Gukurahundi. So right from independence democracy was not given any space to grow because of the two laws LOMA and SOE. It was only in 1989, two years after the Unity Agreement between Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and Nkomo's ZAPU party was signed that the State of Emergency was lifted and the LOMA was repealed but that didn't give democracy a chance to thrive because then the Public Order & Security Act (POSA) was introduced in 2002 and Access to Information and Protection of
Privacy Act (AIPPA) in 2003, which are just as oppressive as LOMA and SOE if not more. To make matters worse there is an unconstitutional section of the Presidential Powers Act and the Criminal Procedure and Offences act that give the President the power to authorise the detention of someone without bail or trial just as was the case in the SOE.

The Public Order and Security Act (POSA) is a piece of legislation introduced in Zimbabwe on 22 January 2002 by a ZANU-PF dominated parliament.The act was amended in 2007. The chief architects of this undemocratic act when it was formulated were Jonathan Moyo and Patrick Chinamasa. It is the following parts and sections of POSA that the Zimbabwean police has been abusing to shoot democracy in the heart.
Part II regards the following as offences against constitutional government and public security
Section 12. Causing disaffection among Police Force or Defence Forces.
Section 15. Publishing or communicating false statements prejudicial to the State.
Section 16. Undermining authority of or insulting President.
The Zimbabwean police have been known to use these sections of Part II of POSA to suppress the freedom of expression and the freedom of the press by silencing journalists, bloggers or individuals who criticise the government and that is because all criticism against the government be it constructive and destructive the police sometimes regard it as undermining of or insulting the authority of the President or as being prejudicial to the State. Come election time it is these sections of part II of POSA that the police use to make sure that the opposition parties do not utter any criticism against ZANU-PF thus resulting in unfair elections.
Part III regards the following as offences against public order
Section 19. Gatherings conducing to riot, disorder or intolerance.
Section 20. Assaulting or resisting peace officer.
Section 21. Undermining of police authority.
Section 22. Intimidation.
These sections of part III of POSA are deliberately misconstrued by the police and used by them to prohibit peaceful protests by civil societies against ineffective or unjust government policies. Section 19 of Part III of POSA is abused by the Zimbabwean police to break up any political gatherings by opposition parties, yet ZANU-PF green bomber militia cause a lot of violent disorder and display a lot of intolerance towards other political parties but the police do not charge them with Section 19 of Part III of POSA. This violates the human right of being treated equally irrespective of one's political affiliation as well as the freedom of association.
Part IV sets the procedure that needs to be followed in order to be allowed to have a public gathering.
Section 24. Organiser to notify regulating authority of intention to hold public gathering.
Section 25. Regulation of public gatherings.
Section 26. Prohibition of public gatherings to avoid public disorder.
Section 27. Temporary prohibition of holding of public demonstrations within particular police districts.
Section 28. Civil liability in certain circumstances of organiser of public gathering.
Section 29. Dispersal of unlawful public gatherings.
Section 31. Disrupting public gatherings.
The Zimbabwean police misuse this Part IV of POSA by coming up with flimsy excuses as to why they can't allow opposition party campaign meetings or rallies to take place, yet ZANU-PF gatherings are virtually never prohibited. Civil societies like WOZA, ZCTU and Lovemore Madhuku's organisation which is concerned with constitutional
matters have constantly had their applications to the police to hold civil gatherings denied with unjustified reasons.

The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) is law enacted in Zimbabwe by a ZANU-PF dominated parliament on 9 November 2004 to oversee how the print and electronic media operated in the country. The law has a provision for a Media and Information Commission, (MIC), a body whose first chairman was Tafataona Mahoso. Since it was introduced, foreign news organizations have been banned from reporting in Zimbabwe while some newspapers in Zimbabwe have been shut down. Professor Jonathan Moyo and Patrick Chinamasa are the undemocratic masterminds behind this piece of legislation which has been described as criminalising the profession of journalism in Zimbabwe. It states that journalists found practicing without accreditation shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine or imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years or both and this violates the human right freedom of expression. The AIPPA law also denies the existence of an association of media houses and this violates the human right freedom of
association. Since its inception the AIPPA law has been extensively used to suppress the freedom of the press and settle political scores with certain sections of the media that criticise government policies.

Laws are made to serve the national interest and not parochial party political interest yet in Zimbabwe laws are sometimes used to suppress the opposing voices of the people. In terms of the Zimbabwean Declaration of Rights, most sections of POSA and AIPPA are unconstitutional, in that they deny the guaranteed rights of assembly and freedom of expression. POSA and AIPPA also defy section 7.5 of the SADC principles and guidelines which states, "Safeguard the human and civil liberties of all citizens including the freedom of movement, assembly, association, expression …’’ They were also being used to violate SADC principles and guidelines governing democratic elections. It is through the use of POSA and AIPPA legislation that ZANU-PF leaders have managed to cripple democracy in Zimbabwe and feed their dictatorial tendencies. How the ZANU-PF government has managed to keep on the statute book a law which is patently unconstitutional and undemocratic is because there is no independent judiciary in Zimbabwe and the Attorney General that is appointed by the President would be pro-ZANU PF instead of non-partisan.

It is these laws that the Zimbabwean GNU government should have given priority to have them repealed so that the human rights of Zimbabwean citizens are respected. The way I see it is that as long as POSA and AIPPA remain in place and are misused or should I say abused by the Zimbabwean Police the American Congress is not going to repeal the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) of 2001. This is true because ZDERA has subsections of its section 4 which says, lines of credit to Zimbabwe will be opened only when there is the American Presidential certification that the following conditions are satisfied :
A certification under this subsection is a certification transmitted to the appropriate American congressional committee of a determination made by the president (of the United States) that the following conditions are satisfied:
■Restoration of the rule of law – The rule of law has been restored in Zimbabwe, including respect for ownership and title to property, freedom of speech and association, and an end to the lawlessness, violence, and intimidation sponsored, condoned, or tolerated by the government of Zimbabwe, the ruling party, and their supporters or entities.
■Election or pre-election conditions – Either of the following two conditions is satisfied
(a) Presidential election –
Zimbabwe has held a presidential election that is widely accepted as free and fair by independent international monitors, and the president – elect is free to assume the duties of the office.
(b) Pre-election conditions –
In the event the certification is made before the presidential election takes place, the government of Zimbabwe has sufficiently improved the pre-election environment to a degree consistent with accepted international standards for security and freedom of movement and association.

I thought I should bring to your attention that POSA and AIPPA became law in Zimbabwe in 2002 and 2004 respectively some years after the American Congress had passed the ZDERA bill in 2001. Does n't that make you suspect Professor Jonathan Moyo and Partrick Chinamasa who drafted these two laws, POSA and AIPPA as acting against the best interests of Zimbabwe or in other words sabotaging the country by coming up with laws that consolidate what ZDERA had stated as the reasons why no lines of credit would be extended to Zimbabwe? The fact that the ZANU-PF dominated parliament of 2002 and 2004 passed these two laws POSA and AIPPA without thinking of how their impact would consolidate what the American Congress of 2001 had cited as the reasons for passing the ZDERA bill goes to show how Zimbabwean parliamentarians tend to support a bill just because it has been introduced by a fellow party member without scrutinising and analysing the bill to see if it has any negative effects on Zimbabweans as a whole.

The Zimbabwean GNU government should take the repealing of POSA and AIPPA as an issue of paramount importance for the much needed change in the lives of Zimbabweans for the better depends on that, since that would make them regain their human rights
and it would in turn result in the American Congress repealing ZDERA and voting positively to allow international financial institutions to give lines of credit to Zimbabwe.