Religious Intelligence
By Kumbirai Mafunda
13 July 2009
ZLHR, a grouping of human rights lawyers who have represented several human rights defenders including senior members of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), took issue with the co-chairpersons of the Parliamentary Select Committee after the committee announced a programme and session chairpersons, who were to chair the conference for the two-day first all stakeholders constitutional conference, which collapsed in Harare on Monday.
Leading academics, Professor Phineas Makhurane and Dr Hope Sadza had been lined up to chair the conference sessions.
But in a letter written Sunday to the Parliamentary Select Committee co-chairpersons, namely ZANU PF member Paul Mangwana, MDC legislators Douglas Mwonzora and David Coltart, ZLHR said there had been absolutely no consultation beyond politicians around the substance and intent of the 1st All Stakeholders Constitutional Conference, the proposed programme and the selection of chairpersons leaving the rights group to conclude that its views were not valued and neither were they considered an important stakeholder at this key stage of the constitution-making process.
“The manner in which this has been handled further leads us to believe that politicians wish to control the proceedings at, and the outcome of, the 1st ASHCC through a blackout of information which results in the exclusion of key stakeholders, denies them the right and ability to prepare effectively for all issues which will be raised at the meeting, and shuts them out of any effective decision-making processes,†read part of the ZLHR letter signed by the organisation’s executive director Irene Petras.
Petras said the percentage of representation of government and political parties when compared to that of non-governmental organisations in particular and the civil society in general, is unacceptably high and acts to exclude key stakeholders, including general members of the public.
“The refusal to revisit the numbers, as we have been advised, shows unwillingness to make this a truly representative meeting. Instead, it is likely to be one in which ordinary people and representatives of various sectors other than politicians and government representatives will have their freedom of expression stifled and their freedom of assembly, association and participation violated,†said Petras whose organization was allocated a total of eight (8) delegates for the conference.
ZLHR said it received an invitation letter ostensibly from the Clerk of Parliament Austin Zvoma at around 11:30 hrs on Saturday 11 July 2009. The rights group said the invitation letter was not delivered by a parliamentary staff member, but by a member of a civic organisation who had visited Parliament building that same day and had found a number of invitations for non-governmental organisations (NGO)’s “lying around and in danger of not being delivered, or of being picked up and taken for use by persons not from the named organisationsâ€.
The influential rights group said the manner in which the organizers handled the invitation and conference programming process shows that the organization is either being put in a position where it will effectively be excluded or is being sidelined although it represents an important sector of society, namely the legal profession in Zimbabwe whose members are mandated with the promotion and protection of human rights in Zimbabwe-a key issue relating to any process of constitutional reform.
“The fact that there has been absolutely no consultation beyond politicians around the substance and intent of the 1st ASHCC, the proposed programme and the selection of Chairperson/s again leads us to believe that our views are not valued; neither are we considered an important stakeholder at this key stage of the constitution-making process,†ZLHR said.
At the constitutional conference political party representation accounts for 40 per cent of the total number of delegates, while non-governmental organisations have an eight per cent representation.
“We have also learned that, in addition to the 40 per cent political party representation, all parliamentarians will be attending over and above the 40 per cent, and that the government also has been allocated a large number of delegates,†Petras said.
The rights group, which maintained that it is committed to striving for a new constitutional dispensation in Zimbabwe, said its eight representatives to the conference were attending the indaba under protest.
“The decision to attend under protest is to ensure that attempts to exclude and/or sideline alternative voices do not succeed, but also to ensure that our organisation is not used to legitimize a process and modus operandi with which we have serious misgivings. Our representatives will also bring our views to the attention of the Chairpersons and attendees at the First ASHCC. We hereby further place it on record that we will take the opportunity, whilst attending this meeting under protest, to monitor the proceedings, participation and outcome thereof closely, and will use our findings as a basis to re-assess, after the close of the 1st ASHCC, whether we can continue to participate without lending legitimacy to such a flawed process, or whether we should take alternate action,†said ZLHR.
Already other influential and militant civil society organizations such as the ZCTU and the NCA are boycotting the constitution making process because they are opposed to Parliament and political parties leading the constitution-making process.