HARARE -- A Harare-based law and parliamentary monitoring group, Veritas, has insisted that the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill 19 was irregularly altered after it had already passed by Parliament.Veritas told The Zimbabwean on Sunday that the Bill passed by Parliament was different from the one signed into law by President Robert Mugabe.
Val Ingham-Thorpe of Veritas said there are three differences between the Act and bill.
The gazetted Act differs considerably from the Bill that was gazetted on 12th December and presented to the House of Assembly on 5th February. The last 18 pages of the Bill, containing the proposed new Schedules 9, 10 and 11 of the Constitution, are omitted, leaving only Schedule 8 in the Act, said Thorpe.
Schedule 8 contains Article 20 of the Interparty Political Agreement (IPA) spelling out how the Inclusive Government will function.
As the Bill was not amended by either House, these omissions in the Act have raised questions, Thorpe told The Zimbabwean on Sunday.
She said staff at the Parliament, when approached for an explanation, said the last three omitted schedules were included in the Bill as a matter of public interest and not intended as part of the Bill to be passed.
But Veritas argued that this is not the usual way of presenting a bill in Parliament.
The group said that an explanation on the constitution making process was left out. It said the gazetted Bills Schedule 10 incorporated Article 6 of the IPA that lays down the procedure and time frame for the process of producing a proposed a new Constitution before the end of 2010.
But its omission from the Act would mean that the process is not written into the Constitution. It added that by keeping this Schedule in the Act it would have meant that the politicians would be bound by the procedure and the time-frame constitutionally and legally.
Having been left out of the Act, the Constitution-making process becomes something the political parties can agree to change, to depart from, to delay, as it suits them, said Thorpe.
She added: There are other implications of the failure to incorporate the new Constitution-making timeframe into the present Constitution. It has been widely assumed that a new Constitution would be soon followed by new elections. Any delays in adopting a new Constitution would extend the term of this transitional inclusive government.
But Constitutional Affairs, Eric Matinenga, said he is not aware on any changes that were made to the Act. I am not so sure about that, but as far as I am concerned there were no changes made but I can be able to pin it down if I am presented with a factual legal position, said Matinenga.
MDC secretary General Tendai Biti who negotiated on behalf of the mainstream MDC-T party said, If there was any changes we would have made noise like we have already done on other issues.
Welshman Ncube, secretary general of the smaller MDC party said he was not aware of any changes that were made. I have gone through the document many times and there are no changes that I have come across, said Ncube.