Despite having enacted the new national constitution in 2013, Zimbabwe is still to realign most of its laws to work in line with the document.
This, according to legal experts, has created confusion in the judiciary system.
Addressing journalists at Quill Club last week, the Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ) president Vimbai Nyemba said most of the laws are archaic.
“Most of our laws are archaic and in contradiction with our new constitution,” she said.
“We have already started commissioning our member to work on the Company Law, it’s so ancient and we worry a lot about it.”
Nyemba said they have already budgeted for the exercise.
“We have budgeted some money to cover the whole process. We spoke to lawyers in commerce and they are very interested,” she said.
Other laws LSZ plans to realign include Criminal Justice and Agriculture.
LSZ executive secretary Edward Mapara said, “The Criminal Codification Act also needs to be addressed because it has been causing a bit of confusion for example some murder convicts are still receiving the death sentence which does not apply in the new constitution.”
Meanwhile, Nyemba said people need to be patient with the government.
“Realignment of law is a process that cannot happen overnight. We have countries like South Africa that are still to realign their laws though having had their constitution several years ago. So we really need to be patient,” she said.
Nyemba said in LSZ’s hands the process will be much quicker than when being done by the government.
“If the realignment process was in our hands it could have had been done by yesterday but all we can do is offer drafts of new laws to the Ministry of Justice and they have the power to push for them to become law,” she said.
