Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum Special Report Enforcing the Rule of Law in Zimbabwe CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSIONS From the evidence presented in this report, our conclusions are brief and extremely depressing. Zanu-PF Parliaments and parliamentarians have repeatedly traduced their electors in passing unconstitutional legislation (often with retrospective provisions) desired by the executive that contravenes the constitutional and democratic rights of Zimbabweans. In collaborating with an increasingly despotic and autocratic executive, the Parliament of Zimbabwe has failed to uphold the rule of law. The executive, and particularly the presidency, has intervened, often unconstitutionally, in the law-making process; deliberately used State and militia forces against those it defines as the ‘opposition’; publicly contravened Zimbabwe’s laws and Constitution in repeated ‘hate speeches’ inciting violence and discrimination; undermined Zimbabweans’ human rights (though these rights to livelihood are not protected in our Constitution) by trashing the economy through policy; and assailed the independence of the judiciary. The role of the current Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, and former AttorneyGeneral, Patrick Chinamasa, in the executive’s undermining of the rule of law has shocked citizens almost as much as the role of the State President, Robert Mugabe. It will take both the police and the defence forces a long time and fundamental restructuring even to begin to regain the trust of Zimbabweans in the role they are supposed to play as neutral protectors of the State (as opposed to the ruling party) and its laws. The judiciary as a whole has sought to uphold both the Constitution and the laws, despite a few individual judges’ collaboration with the executive in its assault on the rule of law. For upholding the rule of law, the judiciary has been publicly humiliated by the executive and denied the protection of Parliament by Zanu-PF MPs. In short, as the world recognised in the recent Abuja Agreement, the post-colonial ‘liberation’ regime has been a complete legal, social, political and economic disaster for ordinary Zimbabweans. Those responsible will, we sincerely hope, one day face a justice that they cannot subvert. 51