…recommended to ratify critical international instruments
Thabiso Nxumalo
Zimbabwe on January 26, 2022 underwent its third cycle of the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva, Switzerland, where Zimbabwe’s human rights records were being examined by the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The Zimbabwean delegation led by Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Ziyambi Ziyambi presented their national report and was put on the hot spot while responding to questions that were asked by member states as they also welcomed commendations and recommendations on the country’s human rights record.
Ziyambi said the nation is headed in the right direction in alleviating human rights grievances having met over 60 percent of the recommendations made in the last review held in 2016 and highlighted major challenges responsible for not meeting all the recommendations.
“We are heading towards the right direction as we have seen improvements and amendments of certain Acts that were infringing on human rights of certain groups. As of this date, we have amended the Education Act and the National Disability Policy among others.
“We have however experienced challenges along the way, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and illegal sanctions amongst others,” said Ziyambi.
Asked on enforced disappearances, lengthy trials and the judiciary’s independence, the minister said the country had gone above and beyond to ensure transparency in the sector and emphasized that no law was made to accommodate any individual in the judiciary and that every personnel in the judiciary was appointed by merit without favor.
“We respect and have put facets to safeguard the independence of the judiciary system in Zimbabwe.
“Every judge and personnel in the judiciary system is appointed based on merit and the judiciary takes every matter seriously, cases such as the attempted bombing of president Mnangagwa in 2018 at the White City stadium in Bulawayo and the disappearance of journalist Itai Dzamara are still ongoing with fortnight updates from the police.
“Some trials have proved to be lengthy owing to the Covid-19 lockdowns and as such we are currently implementing virtual courts in order to panacea this loophole,” added Ziyambi.
On the question of whether, government is exerting force on opposition parties to recall certain Members of Parliament (MP), the minister said that the claims were unfounded and it was the opposition parties’ doings.
“There is no basis for such a concern because this exercise was done by the opposition parties themselves. The law and government did not interfere in this process and it should be noted that it is not for government to allow these recalls or not,” said Ziyambi.
In response to the United States of America representative’s question on whether the government of Zimbabwe is using Covid-19 pandemic as an excuse to avoid constitutionalism and affording human rights to the nation, Ziyambi said that government prioritized people’s lives before anything else, thus, by-elections were delayed as government was focused on fighting Covid-19 and attending to Cyclone Idai hit communities.
“Our primary goal before anything else is to ensure the safety of our people’s lives. Government did not try to deprive the nation of by-elections, but they were simply delayed due to factors such as channeling most of our resources towards the Covid-19 pandemic, attending and re-building communities destroyed by Cyclone Idai amongst others.
“As the nation takes strides from recovering from the lockdown and Covid waves, we have finally set a date for by-elections which will be held on March 26, 2022,” said Ziyambi.
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Permanent Secretary, Virginia Mabiza who was part of the delegation said Zimbabwe media space was free and to date, private media is more vibrant than the public and no journalist has been arrested for doing their job.
“Assumptions that Zimbabwe media is oppressed are ill-advised. We repealed some acts that did not promote free media, journalists in the country are free to operate without fear or favor and no journalist has been arrested for doing their job.
“We also gave out licenses to private media organizations that had applied and they make the bigger chunk of media in the country,” said Mabiza.
Results on Zimbabwe’s review will be announced on Friday, January 28, 2022 at 12:30 CAT.
