By Own Correspondent| Opposition MDC T led by Dr Thokozani Khupe has hailed government for its current steps towards aligning the country’s laws to the Constitution.

Said party spokesperson Linda Masarira in a statement:

We applaud all steps that are being taken to align all the laws of Zimbabwe with the supreme law of the land which is the Constitution.

More than five years after the adoption of the new Constitution in 2013, there’s really no reasonable excuse why we still have several laws not aligned with the supreme law.

As the MDC-T, we perceive this alignment of laws with the Constitution as a low-hanging fruit that doesn’t need a lot of money and/or foreign currency to harvest it.

Sometimes, we are our own worst enemies by failing to simply perform the little things that don’t cost money but that go a very long way in enhancing our country’s democratic credentials.

Going forward, we expect the Government to move swiftly to ensure that Zimbabweans’ fundamental rights and liberties are not only respected but that they are also enforced and upheld.

The pariah State image that is still haunting Zimbabwe can easily be sanitised by simply making sure that the country’s Constitution is religiously obeyed and upheld.

It is also incumbent upon Zimbabweans as a people to responsibly enjoy our fundamental rights and liberties without trashing other people’s rights.

For instance, Section 59 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe gives us the right to engage in peaceful demonstrations that shouldn’t degenerate into orgies of wanton violence and the vandalization and looting of both public and private property. Put simply, no right is absolute.

There are always limitations that are meant to ensure the maintenance of law and order. On their part, security organs of the State should resist the temptation of over-reacting to violent demonstrations.

There’s always need to employ reasonable force rather than resorting to excessive force when dealing with unruly and violent demonstrators.

Linda Tsungirirai Masarira
National Secretary for Information and Publicity