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Zvamaida Murwira Senior Reporter

Cabinet yesterday approved principles to the Companies and Intellectual Property Office of Zimbabwe Bill which seeks to facilitate and support creativity and innovation as well as ease of doing business and service delivery in line with National Development Strategy 1.

Also approved were principles to the Legal Practitioners Amendment Bill which seeks to provide conditions for which foreign lawyers could be granted exemption letters to practice in the country.

This was said by Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa while delivering the 30th post-Cabinet briefing in Harare.

Both Bills were presented before Cabinet by Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi as Chairperson of the Cabinet Committee on Legislation.

On principles of the Companies and Intellectual Property Office of Zimbabwe Bill, Minister Mutsvangwa said the Bill will provide for the establishment of the Companies and Intellectual Property Office.

“The Companies and Intellectual Property of Zimbabwe will be responsible for registration and administration of proprietary rights related to companies, other business entities and intellectual property in Zimbabwe.

“The enactment of the legislation will amend several Acts establishing the Companies and Intellectual Property Office of Zimbabwe,” said Minister Mutsvangwa.

Some of the laws to be amended include, the Copyright and Neighbouring Act (Chapter 26:05), the Patent Act (Chapter 26:03), the Industrial Designs Act (Chapter 26:02), the Integrated Circuit Layout Designs Act(Chapter26:07) v. the Trade Marks Act (Chapter26:04), the Intellectual Property Tribunal Act(Chapter 26:08), the Armorial Bearing, Names, Uniforms and Badges Act (Chapter 10:01); and the Companies and other Business Entities Act (Chapter 24:31).

“The Companies and Intellectual Property Office of Zimbabwe will be urgently established to enable the effective facilitation and support of creativity and innovation in Zimbabwe as well as ease of doing business and service delivery in line with NDSI,” she said.

On the Legal Practitioners Amendment Bill, Minister Mutsvangwa said in order for a legal practitioner to be registered to practice in Zimbabwe it is a requirement that they be resident in Zimbabwe.

“In the event that the legal practitioner is not resident in Zimbabwe they would be granted a residential exemption certificate. The Principles seek to amend Section 5 (1) (c) and Section 7(1) to limit the granting of exemption letters to legal practitioners from a reciprocating country,” she said.

Commenting on both Bills, Minister Ziyambi said the Companies and Intellectual Property Office of Zimbabwe Bill will be subjected to stakeholders’ consultation.

“This Bill is to ensure that we separate the Deeds office from the Companies and Intellectual Properties Office, we believe that this is consistent with what is happening in most of the jurisdictions.

“Basically what we did today is to seek Cabinet authority for this separation and for the approval to deal with several issues. The drafters will drift the proper Bill, subject it to stakeholders consultation so that by end of the day we can have a Bill we can present to Cabinet,” said Minister Ziyambi.

On the Legal Practitioners Amendment Bill, Minister Ziyambi said the Bill seek to ensure that the country’s legal practitioners are equally recognised in other jurisdiction just as they were doing to those from other countries.

“Our intention is to ensure that anybody who wants a legal practitioner with certain skills or expertise, they must be from a country that accepts our skills as opposed to a country that only require us to recognise their expertise, but do not want our own to appear in their courts. We therefore want to give clarity to say the Minister can give a residential exemption certificate to allow that legal practitioner to register and appear in our courts provided there are from a reciprocating country.

“We do not want people to overlook the skills that we have in our country, we believe we have senior counsels here who can equally appear in any jurisdiction. So those jurisdictions who do not recognise our professional expertise we will exclude them from appearing in our courts,” said Minister Ziyambi.