Zim Standard
By Vusumuzi Sifile
5th August 2007
THE Interception of Communications Act, signed into law by President
Robert Mugabe last week, is unconstitutional and can be successfully
challenged in the courts, legal experts said yesterday.
The government will find it difficult to adequately monitor
communications, particularly e-mails and other internet communications, they
said.
The law authorises the government to set up an interception centre to
eavesdrop on telephone conversations, open mail, and intercept e-mails and
faxes.
But legal experts told The Standard yesterday the law was an
unwarranted infringement on people’s rights.
David Coltart, secretary for legal affairs in the pro-Senate faction
of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said the law was
unconstitutional and will have serious repercussions on people’s rights and
freedom of expression.
“There is no independent review of any interception of a person’s
communication,” said Coltart. “It (the law) is an unjustifiable invasion of
a person’s rights.”
He said the government would have a tough time implementing the law.
“There are practical difficulties in implementing the law,” he said,
“especially in the current environment when there is no foreign currency in
the country. The equipment to monitor communications has to be imported, and
I doubt if the service providers have the capacity to do so. They will find
it difficult to adequately monitor communications, particularly e-mails. “
The president of the Law Society of Zimbabwe, Beatrice Mtetwa, said
the law could be challenged in the Supreme Court.
She said: “They had been intercepting before the debate, and what this
law simply does is to legalise what they have already been doing”.
The spokesperson of the Morgan Tsvangirai anti-Senate faction of the
MDC, Nelson Chamisa, condemned Zanu PF for using Parliament to deprive
people of their liberties.
“Instead of expanding people’s freedoms, we are restricting them,”
said Chamisa. “This is an anti-technology, anti-people and
anti-modernisation law. This is a state of paranoia and panic by this
regime. Nobody is safe – the church, the media, workers’ union, opposition
parties and civil society. The law will be used to crucify whoever is
perceived to be of a different political view to those in power.”
Chamisa sits in the parliamentary portfolio committee on transport and
communications. He said yesterday that during public hearings on the law
only soldiers overwhelmingly supported it.
“We need to put to finality this madness of using Parliament to
rubberstamp this crescendo against the people. This is clearly a war against
the people. What is left now is for them to legalise the setting up of
gadgets in people’s bedrooms,” said Chamisa.
Chairperson of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zimbabwe
Chapter, Loughty Dube said Zimbabwe did not need such laws which stifled
freedom of expression. He said prying into people’s conversations was
“simply an indication of a government that is afraid of its own citizens”.
Under the law, Internet service providers (ISPs) have to install
equipment to facilitate interception “at all times or when so required” and
ensure that the equipment allows full-time monitoring of communications.
An official with an ISP in Harare, requesting anonymity, said they did
not have the capacity to implement the requirements, and – like shop owners
in the ongoing price blitz – could be forced out of business.
“This law is too expensive for Zimbabwe. All the equipment has to be
imported, and we do not have foreign currency for that. Most ISPs would be
forced to close shop,” he said.
Last year, the Zimbabwe Internet Service Providers Association (ZISPA)
told the parliamentary portfolio committee on transport and communications
that the law (then a Bill) “is very vague in its provisions and extremely
broad in scope”.
ZISPA also warned that “private and confidential personal information
could be intercepted and misused by officials who obtain access to it”.
“This could include communications between lawyers and clients,
doctors and patients, priests and their flock, journalists and their
sources”, wrote ZISPA.
Yesterday ZISPA chairperson Jim Holland was said to be out of the
country.
The government says the law is necessary to protect the country from
international terrorism and espionage, and is not unique to Zimbabwe.