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Summary: General overview of Zimbabwe's national legal provisions on children's rights, including guidance on how to conduct further research.
National laws on children's rights Status of the CRC in national law Constitution: Chapter III of the Constitution (articles 11-26) contains Zimbabwe's constitutional rights provisions, including a small number of references to children. A small number of further provisions throughout the Constitution also specifically address children. The relevant provisions are: Legislation: Zimbabwe has a Children's Act, but provisions relevant to children's rights can be found in a large number of Acts. Relevant legislation includes, but is by no means limited to: Legal Research: Case Law Case Law Research Compliance with the CRC In depth analysis The Committee also raised serious concerns with regards to the State's legislation on non-discrimination. The Committee noted that the Constitution's prohibition on discrimination (art. 23) contains broad exemptions to the principle in relation to areas such as adoption, marriage, divorce and other matters of personal law, as well as the inheritance rights of girls, the minimum age for marriage and the rights of children born out of wedlock. The relevant Constitutional provision has been amended since 1996, but the exemption in relation to personal law remains. Current legal reform projects
Article 111B of the Zimbabwean Constitution provides that treaties and conventions do not form part of the law of Zimbabwe unless they have been incorporated by an Act of Parliament. The CRC has not been incorporated and so is not directly applicable in the country, does not prevail over national law, and cannot be directly enforced in the courts. Nevertheless, courts can and do cite the Convention in interpreting national legislation or when addressing other matters related to children's rights.
The Zimbabwe Parliament maintains an official website (http://www.parlzim.gov.zw/) that offers the text of some bills under consideration and basic information about the country's law-making process. The International Labour Organisation's NATLEX database provides links to a selection of Zimbabwean legislation (http://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex_browse.country?p_lang=en&p_country=ZWE), and Law and Justice Zimbabwe has also published a selection of legislation in English (http://www.law.co.zw/index.php/legislation-a-judgements/cat_view/15-legislation.html). The amended Constitution is available in English from the Electoral Knowledge Network (http://aceproject.org/ero-en/regions/africa/ZW/zimbabwe-constitution-of-zimbabwe-2008-1). In addition, the GlobaLex project at New York University has published a guide to legal research in Zimbabwe (http://www.nyulawglobal.org/Globalex/Zimbabwe1.htm) and the U.S. Law Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/law/help/guide/nations/zimbabwe.php) and the World Legal Information Institute (http://www.worldlii.org/zw/) provide a selection of links to relevant legal and governmental resources.
CRC Jurisprudence
The High Court of Zimbabwe cited the CRC in in State v. Chikungurese [2004] when determining the appropriate sentence for a child sexual abuse offender and in Bion v. Bion [2005] in reference to the provision of child support.
The Southern African Legal Information Institute has published selected decisions of the Supreme Court (http://www.saflii.org/zw/cases/ZWSC/), the Harare High Court (http://www.saflii.org/zw/cases/ZWHHC/) and the Bulawayo High Court (http://www.saflii.org/zw/cases/ZWBHC/).
Zimbabwe has not reported to the Committee on the Rights of the Child since 1996, and as such it is difficult to comment on the compatibility of its laws with the CRC. Nevertheless, at the time of the Committee's 1996 Concluding Observations, the Committee raised concerns that many areas of national law fell short of the principles and provisions of the Convention, and recommended that the State undertake a comprehensive review of its national laws with a view to ensuring compatibility. The Committee particularly identified discrimination as a prevalent feature of national law.
As of its 1996 Concluding Observations, the Committee on the Rights of the Child highlighted several major flaws in the Zimbabwean juvenile justice system. In particular, the Committee raised serious concerns over the lack of a prohibition on capital punishment, life imprisonment, indeterminate prison sentences and whippings in relation to offences committed by persons under the age of 18. The Committee urged the State to explicitly prohibit the use of such penalties. The Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act prohibited capital punishment for offences committed by persons under 18 in 2004, but corporal punishment remains lawful for males under 18 and life sentences remain lawful with regards to certain offences committed by children.
The process of drafting a new Constitution is under way in Zimbabwe.