Parly to confront Mugabe over Constitution

via Parly to confront Mugabe over Constitution – NewsDay Zimbabwe January 24, 2015

JUSTICE and Constitutional Affairs parliamentary portfolio committee chairperson Jessie Majome says when Parliament resumes sitting next week, her committee plans to take the Executive head-on over its alleged disregard of the Constitution.

Majome told NewsDay this week that she was disturbed by President Robert Mugabe’s disregard of other arms of government and the Executive’s alleged laissez faire approach in implementing and upholding provisions of the Constitution.

“We will take appropriate remedies as provided for by the Constitution in the House to cause the President to obey and uphold the Constitution as his list of breaches is growing by the day,” Majome said.

She added: “Besides the recent deployment of defence forces without promptly informing Parliament, the President has not issued a state of the nation address to the House and nation as required by the Constitution. We are, therefore, going to remind him of his constitutional obligations.”

Mugabe, who is the Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, last week deployed a contingent to provide VVIP security at the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations football finals in Equatorial Guinea without consulting Parliament in alleged breach of the Constitution.

The government, according to Majome, has been delaying implementing the Constitution in full by “hiding” behind outstanding laws that need to be aligned to the Constitution.

“The Executive continues to behave as if they are no institutions where it should account to, but I am also disappointed by the civil society and media who have not applied pressure on the alignment of laws and full implementation of the Constitution,” she said.

The Executive is still to implement devolution of local governments as encapsulated in the Constitution. Provincial governments are also still to be inaugurated more than one and a half years after the 2013 general elections.