MPs called to stop arbitrary detentions

via MPs called to stop arbitrary detentions – New Zimbabwe 24/11/2015

PARLIAMENT has been urged to move with speed to deal with a piece of law that has been described as “obnoxious” by critics of President Robert Mugabe’s administration and used for further detention of mainly opponents of the regime.

The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) said Parliament should “harmonise section 121 (3) of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act (CPEA)” as a matter of urgency.

The provision relates to the pre-trial rights of those detained or accused of criminal offences as provided in the Constitution.

“While this infamous law had attracted notoriety and controversy, since 2008 ZLHR noted that in almost all cases where the same section had been invoked, the prosecution either abandoned the appeal or lost the appeal in the higher court on the basis that the appeal lacked merit,” said ZLHR in statement this week.

“Furthermore, section 121 (3) of the CPEA was mostly invoked in cases involving charges of a politically-related character and also cases invariably involving human rights defenders.”

“Because the NPA was not, in terms of that law, compelled to provide reasons for its prosecutors’ decisions to invoke the provision, it effectively meant, therefore, that such a provision and its invocation rendered the judicial officer and his or her findings irrelevant hence it was an assault and an affront on the independence of the judiciary,” the lawyers body added.

ZLHR added that while Parliament is currently considering the controversial law it “remains concerned that there is no provision in the Bill to amend” the discredited section “to remove the possibility of arbitrary deprivation of liberty by the NPA”.

Therefore, ZLHR said, Parliament should “repeal” the controversial section “as it allows prosecutors to arbitrarily deprive persons of liberty for seven days by merely advising a judicial officer of an intention to appeal against bail granted.”

The NPA was also called upon to “embrace the United Nations Basic Principles on the Role of Prosecutors and the African Union Guidelines on the Right to Fair Trial and Legal Assistance in Africa as useful guidelines on the role and responsibilities of prosecutors”.

Activists argue that the same law has been repeatedly abused by prosecutors from the NPA over the years.

According to the lawyers’ group, the government has used the law, “to veto bail orders granted by judicial officers, distorting the concept of separation of powers as envisaged in any democratic society by undermining the authority of the judiciary to make rulings and decisions that advance the best interests of justice and the rights to personal liberty, rights of arrested and detained persons”.

Two months ago, the full bench of the Constitutional Court, led by Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku made a ruling declaring “the notorious” section “to be unconstitutional and against the letter and spirit of provisions on the right to liberty”.

Chidyausiku’s declaration, hailed by rights groups and defenders, came after a private citizen Fanuel Kamurendo, petitioned the court in 2014 protesting against the violation of his fundamental right to liberty.