Parly committee calls for debate on death penalty

via Parly committee calls for debate on death penalty | The Herald October 19, 2015

The National Assembly’s Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs has proposed a special parliamentary debate on the death penalty.

Tabling the committee’s report in the National Assembly on Tuesday, the committee’s chairperson, Jessie Majome, expressed concern that there are various offences in the Criminal Code that have not been dealt with in the General Laws Amendment Bill that is before Parliament. The justice committee report said among the issues that have not been addressed was the age of consent and the death penalty.

“Parliament should be allowed to fully debate the issue of whether or not Parliament should pass a law that permits the death penalty in accordance with Section 48(2) of the Constitution.

“Or, if Parliament does decide to reinstate the death penalty for murder committed in circumstances of aggravation, then a new provision should be added to set out that the death penalty is not mandatory and the court has a discretion to impose the death penalty after weighing aggravating circumstances against any mitigating circumstances,” said Ms Majome.

MPs said there was a need for adequate consultations on the age of sexual consent.

“Presently, for both crimes, the law provides that a victim below the age of 12 is irrefutably presumed to lack the capacity to consent to the sexual act in question. The law also provides that if a boy or girl above 12, but is 16 and below, the person charged will be guilty of rape or aggravated indecent assault unless there is evidence that the girl or boy was capable of giving consent to the sexual intercourse or the penetrative sexual conduct.

“There is strong argument for raising the age of consent of these crimes,” added Ms Majome, while presenting the report.

The report said the Constitutional Court ruling in the case of Madanhire and Anor v Attorney-General (2015) ZWCC 02, will require the repeal of criminal defamation contained in Section 96 of the Criminal Law Code, but that had not been addressed.

It said another case that has not be dealt with in the Bill was the case of Chimakure and Ors v A-G S-14-13 in which the court ruled as unconstitutional several aspects of the offence of publishing false statements prejudicial to the State.

“There was general consensus from stakeholders that the few amendments proposed to the Electoral Act are not nearly as many as are needed.

“In particular, stakeholders observed that the following issues were left unaddressed: Section 12 of the Electoral Act which requires ZEC to get approval from the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs before accepting a donation as this infringes on ZEC’s constitutionally guaranteed independence in terms of Section 235 of the Constitution, since ministers are active players in the election process. While section 37B of the Electoral Act envisages the President fixing the dates for the delimitation of constituencies, Section 161(1) of the Constitution confers that responsibility on ZEC,” added the report.