observers. More particularly the independence and impartiality of ZEC must not only be there but must be seen to be there at all operational levels of its constitutional mandate. The media plays a critical in strengthening the pillars of good governance and democracy in any state. In the absence of clear legislative, administrative and judicial mechanisms, the media can become an appendage of the governing party that spews unbalanced and biased reporting, thereby compromising the enjoyment of other rights in the Constitution. In Zimbabwe this is particularly evident during electoral periods where sometimes the media is used to as a medium to transmit hate campaigns and unfavourably cover the political contestations. Fortunately the Constitution now recognises the importance of fair and equal access to electronic and print media.xThe State is obliged to take all appropriate measures, including legislative measures, to ensure all political parties and candidates contesting an election have fair and equal access to electronic and print media, both public and private. While the Electoral Law deals with issues of equal access to the media by all participants, there is no effective enforcement mechanism. There is no clear way of monitoring compliance and dealing with breaches of these requirements. There must be clear consequences for breaches of this rule. The Electoral Law must set out clear monitoring mechanisms to ensure that state media complies with these basic rules and there must be clear consequences of compliance failures. Section 239(k) empowers ZEC to receive and consider complaints from the public and to take such action in regard to the complaints as the Commission considers appropriate. This mechanism is meant to reduce matters that have to be taken to the courts. ZEC should have a clear mechanism for handling and resolving complaints. This would reduce the burden on the courts and also the costs and delays that usually come with litigation. Such a system could handle issues such as complaints over unequal media coverage during election campaigns. The Electoral Law should set out a clear public complaints handling mechanism by ZEC, with clear enforceable powers that ZEC can exercise in resolving the disputes. An issue that will require particular attention is the implementation of Bio-metric Voter Registration (BVR). ZEC has already made policy pronouncement to the effect that the BVR system will be used for the 2018 general elections. Regionally and internationally the use of BVR has been lauded for enhancing the credibility, simplicity and transparency of electoral systems. BVR is lauded for its specific benefits of enhancing the credibility and integrity of the voters’ roll through, inter alia, the elimination of cases of possible multiple voting, enhancement of data accuracy, and protection of privacy and security of the voters. These value-added benefits of the BVR system are consistent with the Constitution. Section 156(a) of the Constitution obliges ZEC to conduct elections using voting systems that are simple, accurate, verifiable, secure and transparent. It is suggested that the BVR system resonates with the constitutional ethos and in this regard, ZEC’s policy position to implement the system is commendable. What is of concern is the absence of specific subsidiary law that 5 Policy Brief: A Call For Alignment Of Laws With The Constitution ©ZESN 2017