Recent Developments in the Legal Field
INSTITUTE OF CHARTERED SECRETARIES AND ADMINISTRATORS:- MANICA HOTEL, MUTARE
I have been asked to speak to you today about recent developments in the legal field. I suppose that normally Chartered Secretaries would expect to be addressed on developments in law which directly affect the business sector, such as the recently enacted Private Corporations Act or the proposed changes to the Law of Insurance. However when your Chief Executive invited me to speak to you, she gave an extremely wide mandate and I propose to exploit that to the full. I am further fortified in doing this by the theme of this seminar: “Update on Current Affairs” and by the proposed title of my talk being “Recent Developments in the Legal Field” as opposed to “Developments in Zimbabwean Law”. I do not propose to delve into the minutiae of various legislative changes which have occurred in the past year or so. I would like to discuss what I believe to be a much more profound development in Zimbabwe which could affect every aspect of our lives and certainly our prospects of enjoying meaningful economic development.
In last Thursday’s Financial Gazette (27 May 1994) the editorial concluded with the following sentence: “Economic reform must be accompanied by far reaching political reform to cultivate a stable, open and accountable democratic process”. When I addressed a similar conference in May 1991, I said: “ESAP will stand or fall on the degree of genuine democracy brought to Zimbabwe”. I also said: “any undermining of the judiciary will inevitably affect not only the internal economy but also the confidence of foreign investors”. I thought then that the Government had seriously undermined the judiciary and respect for our Declaration of Rights by virtue of Act 30 of 1990 which, amongst other things, amended section 15 of the Constitution. At the time I argued that the amendment was not just an issue of reintroducing corporal punishment for juveniles (reversing the Supreme Court’s decision in A Juvenile 1989 (2) ZLR 61) but that it displayed a more serious ulterior motive. That motive was to undermine the Supreme Court and to emasculate the Declaration of Rights. I further argued that this action could adversely affect the success or otherwise of the Structural Adjustment Programme.