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Minister Ziyambi

Blessings Chidakwa Herald Correspondent
GOVERNMENT is implementing urgent measures to fast-track the realignment of the country’s laws to the Constitution, amid concerns over delays in the process. Newly-appointed Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Cde Ziyambi Ziyambi said realignment of the country’s laws to the Constitution was among his top priorities.

Cde Ziyambi, who is a lawyer, said his ministry would push to ensure that non-compliant ministries realign pieces of legislation within their purview to the supreme law of the land.

“As the Justice Ministry, the realignment of laws is one of our top priorities. We have already started to intensify the process of realignment of the laws to the Constitution. We have those ministries that are not compliant or have been slow in complying with the directive to realign laws within their purview. We are now liaising with them to do so urgently,” he said.

Cde Ziyambi said Government had set up an inter-ministerial committee to handle the realignment of the laws to speed up the process. President Emmerson Mnangagwa gave ministers until this week to clearly spell out their vision and priorities.

Government has been criticised in the past for taking long to realign some of the pieces of legislation to the Constitution. Of the 396 Acts that were in the statute books after the adoption of the new Constitution, 206 require alignment.

At least 67 of the Acts make provisions for the representation of women in statutory bodies, while 51 of them were aligned when the National Prosecuting Authority Act (Chapter 7:20) came into effect. The recently passed General Laws Amendment Act amended 125 Acts.

Several others, including the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Amendment Act, Gender Commission Act, Joint Ventures Act, Local Government Amendment Act, Judicial Laws Amendment Bill, Deeds Registries Amendment Bill, National Competitiveness Commission Bill and the Special Economic Zones Act have already been passed in Parliament.