Judgment No. CCZ 12/2015 56 Const. Application No. 79/14 PATEL JCC: I agree GUVAVA JCC: I agree HLATSHWAYO JCC: - I respectfully agree with the Honourable Deputy Chief Justice’s reasoning and conclusion that on a proper construction, the Constitution by necessary implication sets the minimum age of consent to marriage at eighteen years. I do so also for the additional reasons pertaining to the structure and scheme of the section, and to the legislative history of the provision which in my view one can fairly take judicial notice of. The predecessor provisions to s 78 of the Constitution can be found in the Draft Constitutional Proposals 1 of the Parliamentary Select Committee (COPAC) of 26 January 2012 (hereinafter termed ‘Proposal 1’), the Draft Constitutional Proposals of 18 July 2012 (‘the 18 July 2012 Draft’) and the 2000 Draft Constitution of Zimbabwe. Section 78 of the Constitution states: “78 Marriage rights 1) Every person who has attained the age of eighteen years has the right to found a family 2) No person may be compelled to enter into marriage against their will 3) Persons of the same sex are prohibited from marrying each other.”