Const referendum in Feb – Mwonzora

The select committee is a 25-member body appointed by the governing body of Parliament to spearhead the formulation of a new constitution under the Global Political Agreement signed between the three main political parties – Zanu (PF), MDC-T and MDC-M.

In an interview this week with The Zimbabwean, Mwonzora said: We are still debating the number of people to sit in the drafting committee but they are likely to be between 10 and 12. I can confirm that the appointments will be made public soon, he said.

During the ongoing constitutional reform process, in which COPAC is still gathering the peoples views on the new constitution countrywide, there has been a widespread fear that some political parties were going to manipulate the information collected to suit their political partys agenda.

Mwonzora, however, dismissed the fears saying the drafting committee would be selected purely on the basis of merit and demonstrated knowledge of political science and constitutional law. He said the committee would draw upon the vast experience in the legal fraternity.

This is purely technical work and appointments will not be done based on political party affiliations, he said.

In line with Article Six of the GPA, the select committee should produce a draft and that is why they will create the drafting committee to work directly under the select committee in providing the technical aspect of making a draft. We are even looking beyond borders because it is always important to check the best practices elsewhere he said.

Mwonzora added that after the gathering of information from the members of public, the various sub committees assigned to every thematic area would sit down and debate all the information in their area of focus before handing it to the drafting committee.