Harare, Zimbabwe(News of the South)-Government proposed Constitutional amendments to give the president powers to appoint the Chief Justice and his deputies is a danger to democratic constitutionalism even though the amending process is very much legal, a senior government official has said.
Responding to a recent state media publication which quoted retired Judge Justice Moses Chinhengo, Prof Jonathan Moyo said defending the legality of the move was beside the point which is the threat to democratic constitutionalism of such a move.
In the article Justice Chinhengo said any criticism of the proposed amendment is not legally justified as provisions relating to the Judiciary are not severely entrenched as those relating to the Bill of Rights.
“I want to emphasise that, because we must appreciate that it is us who provided that this Constitution can be amended, anyone who is moving to amend the Constitution constitutionally you cannot fault him. Am I right?’
“We agreed that you can amend this Constitution and you must follow certain procedures and if you follow those procedures to the letter, no one should really criticise you at the legal level”.
“People may criticise, like the Law Society of Zimbabwe, and validly so to say well, we do not think you can temper with our Constitution so soon after it was adopted, that is a good point. But if a person tinkers with it and does so lawfully and constitutionally, you cannot blame him”, he reportedly said.
However Prof Moyo said Justice Chinhengo was defending the wrong point as the chief argument of those against the government’s move isn’t about its legality.
“Who said amendment procedure isn’t lawful?’
“(The) issue isn’t constitutionality or legality of amendment but its sinister threat to democratic constitutionalism!”
“This is a strawman argument”.
“Debate is not whether or how Constitution can be amended. That’s a no brainer!” he said.
Government is going ahead with plans to amend the Constitution, adopted in 2013, and this has irked certain quarters who feel, as with the previous one, more amendments may be in line.
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