Law Society of Zimbabwe Analyses Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No 3) Bill

The Law Society of Zimbabwe has published written submissions it has sent to Parliament on the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No 3) Bill.  They can be accessed on the Veritas website [link].  In its submissions the Society examined the Bill to see if the amendments it proposes making to the Constitution would be in conflict with other constitutional provisions or with international and regional norms and standards.

Summary of the Submissions

Amendments that are not legally problematic

The Law Society considers that the following provisions of the Bill do not raise substantive legal (as opposed to political) concerns:

• Changing the method of electing the President, from direct election by voters to election by Parliament (clauses 3 and 6)
• Extending the presidential and parliamentary terms from five to seven years (clauses 4, 9 and 10) – though the Society is seriously concerned about applying this extension to current office-holders, as we shall note below
• Removing the distinction between first and second Vice-Presidents (clause 5)
• Requiring the Attorney-General to be qualified for appointment to the Supreme Court (clause 7)
• Extending the jurisdiction of the Constitutional Court to cover non-constitutional cases (clause 14)
• Abolishing the Zimbabwe Gender Commission and transferring its functions to the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (clauses 18 and 19)
• Repealing provisions relating to the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (clause 22).

The Law Society’s verdict on these provisions is much the same as that expressed by Veritas in Constitution Watches 1 of 2026 [link] and 2 of 2021 [link] though with the following provisos:

• Having the President – who as an executive President is the most powerful office-holder in the land – elected by Parliament rather than by the people dilutes the principle of one man one vote, for which the liberation war was fought.
• We consider that the proposal to allow the Constitutional Court to deal with non-constitutional cases is badly thought out and will lead to considerable legal confusion, with overlapping jurisdiction between the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court.
• Abolishing the Gender Commission devalues the principle of gender equality, which is a core value of the Constitution.

It must be remembered however that the Law Society’s submissions are concerned only with the legal effect of the proposed amendments;  the Society has not commented on their political or social implications.

Amendments that raise serious legal problems

The following provisions of the Bill raise substantive legal concerns in the Law Society’s view:

• Transferring responsibility for voter registration and voters rolls from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to the Registrar-General (clauses 2 and 17)
• Creating a new Delimitation Commission to fix electoral boundaries (clauses 11, 12 and 13)
• Giving the President power to appoint 10 senators (clause 6)
• Giving the President power to appoint judges and the Prosecutor-General after mere consultation with the Judicial Service Commission (clauses 15 and 20)
• Allowing traditional leaders to be politically partisan (clause 21)

Need for referendum

The Law Society is particularly concerned with clauses of the Bill which seek to apply the extension of presidential and parliamentary terms to incumbents:  in other words, the clauses which would allow the current President and parliamentarians to remain in office for an additional two years.  In the Society’s view, these clauses cannot be passed into law unless they are approved by voters voting in a national referendum in terms of section 328(9) of the Constitution.

This is the same view that Veritas expressed in Bill Watch 1 of 2026 [link] .

Conclusion

The Law Society’s submissions are well reasoned, carefully expressed and studiously non-partisan.  It is to be hoped that the Government will pay due regard to the views of the Society, which is the elected representative of Zimbabwe’s legal profession.

Veritas makes every effort to ensure reliable information, but cannot take legal responsibility for information supplied