Source: Amendment Bill: Parliament collates verdict . . . sifts through submissions – herald
Debra Matabvu
Senior Reporter
PARLIAMENT has started compiling a draft report on submissions made during the 90-day public consultation window for Constitution Amendment Bill (No. 3), following the conclusion of the public hearings on Monday.
More than 300 000 submissions will now be analysed over the next two weeks, with the Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs set to table the draft report when Parliament resumes sitting next month.
Written submissions were delivered physically to Parliament, some via email during the four-day public hearings held between March 31 and April 2 across the country’s 64 districts.
Parliament also held direct interviews with various groups, including the Chiefs’ Council, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and the Zimbabwe Gender Commission (ZGC), among others.
The Constitution Amendment Bill (No. 3) was gazetted on February 16 and seeks to redraft provisions of the Constitution which could significantly reshape aspects of Zimbabwe’s governance and electoral framework.
Under Section 328 of the Constitution, Constitutional Amendment Bills must undergo a mandatory 90-day public consultation period before they can proceed to Parliament.
In an interview yesterday, Clerk of Parliament Mr Kennedy Chokuda expressed satisfaction with the process, saying the mechanisms put in place by Parliament had enabled extensive public participation.
He said extensive analysis of all the submissions will now commence.
“The 90 days ended last night at midnight, and we begin the process now of going through the submissions one by one, and analysing the content that is coming from the public, because that is the whole idea of the 90 days — to receive the submissions from the public,” he said.
“Our staff has started going through the submissions. In the next two to three weeks, we should be done with going through all the submissions and coming up with a draft report for presentation in the House. We are deploying a lot of our staff just to go through the submissions because they are quite extensive.”
More than 300 000 public submissions were received during the 90-day consultation process, representing one of the largest public participation exercises in recent constitutional reform processes.
“I can assure you, the participation from the public has been overwhelming,” Mr Chokuda added.
“We have never received submissions like this, and we are very grateful to the citizens of Zimbabwe. We are happy as Parliament, because it confirms that we put in place mechanisms to enable the public to participate. We are very happy about that.”
Mr Chokuda said the draft report will be presented during the second stage of the bill’s reading. The first reading is likely to be done when Parliament resumes sitting during the first week of June.
“The next stage will be the Minister now formally presenting the bill in Parliament after the lapse of the 90 days,” he said.
“The first reading will take place, and like the usual process, the first reading is simply the Minister reading the long title of the bill. There is no discussion or debate at that stage.
“The substantive debate happens at the second reading stage, where the Minister will go into detail in terms of motivating the bill, explaining the bill to members of Parliament. The chairperson of the relevant committee will then present the report of the committee, including the findings from the public and the recommendations of the committee. Thereafter, all the other members of Parliament will then participate in the debate.”
Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs chairman, Cde Eddison Zvobgo Jr, said the draft report will be ready when Parliament resumes.
“Remember we had already started compiling the report, and we are now working on the remaining statistics,” he said.
“So the report will be ready in two weeks.”
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