Zimbabwe Rule of Law Journal |135 Code. As will be seen below, it is difficult to see how the courts can find a satisfactory way of allowing these defences to operate in the absence of explicit incorporation of these defences into section 48. Self-defence Everyone should have the right to use force to defend himself or herself against an attacker who is intending to kill him or her or cause him or her serious injury. Section 52 of the Constitution provides that every person has the right to bodily integrity which includes the right to freedom from all forms of violence. As Burchell points out in Principles of Criminal Law 4th Ed p 117 where the State has failed to provide protection against such an attack “it is the individual’s inherent right accepted by all law, both natural as well as civil’ to resort to private defence.” Under section 253 of the Criminal Law Code where X causes the death of Y who is murderously attacking him, X can rely on the defence of self-defence providing that the causing of death was reasonably necessary to defend himself or herself against such an attack. But section 48 of the 2013 Constitution provides that everyone has a right to life except a person convicted of murder in aggravating circumstances. Thus the person under attack has the right to life but, taken at face value, even a person who is unlawfully attacking another also has the right to life. This would mean that the person defending against a murderous assault would not be permitted to deprive the attacker of his constitutionally guaranteed right to life. This, of course, would lead to a completely ridiculous result that the person defending himself could be charged with murder or culpable homicide. If, as is often the case, there is a dispute as to whether in fact the person who caused death did so in self-defence the prosecution can’t simply decline to prosecute that person. Even where it is evident that the accused person caused death when he or she was under attack, there may still be doubt as to whether the causing of death was reasonably necessary to ward off the attack. If, however, the accused is charged with culpable homicide the court may be able to find that a reasonable person under attack would have acted no differently from the way in which the accused acted and thus the