
There are currently at least 63 people on death row across the country after being sentenced for murder, and they will be returned to court to be re-sentenced to the new maximum life imprisonment or a long and fixed sentence if Parliament abolishes the death penalty.
It comes as a private member’s bill to abolish the death penalty in Zimbabwe on Tuesday won Cabinet support, essentially ensuring that Parliament will approve it, with life imprisonment now the maximum penalty for aggravated murder.
Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Dr. Genevan Mossoire said after the Cabinet meeting that although the draft law to abolish the death penalty was approved, the Cabinet still wants the new law to impose lengthy sentences to deter murder. It was agreed that the circumstances that required the death penalty in the past were if the murder was committed against a prison or police officer, or against a minor or a pregnant woman, or was committed in the context of other serious crimes or where there was premature murder. Meditation, then an appropriate severe punishment was needed.
“Given the need to maintain an element of deterrence in sentencing murderers, the new law is expected to impose lengthy sentences without violating the right to life,” Minister Mosswer said. In Zimbabwe, women, people under the age of 21 and people over the age of 70 cannot be sentenced to death.
But there was a pause It has been in operation since 2005 after the executions of Stephen Chidomo and Edgar Masendeke, but legally a High Court judge can impose the death penalty on men found guilty of aggravated murder.
However, presidential clemency orders commuted these sentences to life imprisonment several years ago. Speaking during a workshop on the death penalty organized by Amnesty International in Harare yesterday, Member of Parliament and member of the Dzivareskwa Parliamentary Legal Committee, Mr Edwin Mushuriwa, said Zimbabwe was moving towards abolishing the death penalty.
“The majority of our people want the death penalty to be abolished,” Mushuriwa said.
“More than 63 prisoners currently on death row would likely still be alive if the death penalty were abolished in Zimbabwe. Spending more than 20 years in prison is more punishing than the death penalty.
“We need to make sure that we respect the right to life, and we hope that this bill will be passed. I am very confident that by the end of this year Zimbabwe will be one of the countries that would have abolished the death penalty in its laws.”
Lucy Chivasa, Campaigns Officer at Amnesty International, said: “The death penalty is the ultimate, cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
She said: “Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception, regardless of the accused, the nature of the circumstances of the crime, guilt or innocence, or the method of execution.”
“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the background for the abolition of the death penalty because it talks about the right to life. Articles 3 and 5 stipulate that no one shall be subjected to torture or inhuman treatment.
“The death penalty is not an issue of public opinion because some people do not know about it. We are confident and know that the death penalty is not related to public opinion but rather to political will.”
Death row prisoners will be re-sentenced by the Supreme Court and can appeal to the Supreme Court against the new sentences and are allowed to apply to the President for clemency under Article 112 of the Constitution.
Zimbabwe, as an independent country, had been wary of the death penalty from the beginning, and had abandoned many colonial laws and replaced them with death sentences, even the option of the death penalty for some ordinary crimes, leaving the death penalty only in the case of murder without extenuating circumstances. .
Hanging required a positive decision by a majority of the Cabinet under the 1980 Constitution, and it became clear during the 1990s that there was a growing dislike for carrying out this punishment.
This has seen a growing number of presidential clemency orders replacing life sentences, a procedure that has now long become routine. Announce