The sentences of at least 63 prisoners convicted of various crimes including murder will be commuted to life imprisonment. This was after Edwin Mushuriwa, Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) Member of Parliament for Dzivarasekwa, presented the proposed law to Parliament through a Private Members Bill.
The government has already published the draft law in the Official Gazette after it passed through the House of Representatives and the Senate. The last time the death penalty was carried out in Zimbabwe was in 2005, and 61 prisoners had been at loggerheads since then until Judge Munamatu Mutividzi sentenced Tapiwa Makori’s killers to death.
However, Mushuriwa said the death penalty should be completely abolished as there was a high risk that future parliamentarians would re-enact the law as the Constitution stipulates so.
“I am concerned that other representatives who may come in the future may re-enact the law because our constitution has this loophole. So, I hope that the death penalty will be completely abolished,” Mushuriwa said.
Amnesty International Zimbabwe has hailed the move as the right step towards ending inhuman punishment. Amnesty International has long opposed the death penalty without exception because it violates the right to life as stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
South Africa-based lawyer Tirairai Rector Mavokidze, a member of the Johannesburg Bar Association, supported Amnesty International Zimbabwe’s position on the death penalty, telling reporters that the abolition of the death penalty had been delayed because the law had become outdated.
“The death penalty serves no purpose. It has been used as a political tool to harm black dissidents especially during the colonial and post-independence era,” said lawyer Mavokidze. Masvingo Mirror
