Zanu PF President Robert Mugabe is not not one and the same person as Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe for the purpose of defamation and insulting laws against the President
President Laws against insulting or defaming the nation itself, the head of state, as well as foreign heads of state and diplomats, public institutions and bodies, and public officials, either while they are exercising official functions or because of those functions are on the statutes of most countries.
Yet prosecution for such crimes is in most such countries are rarely resorted to and where there has been evidence of enthusiasm in pursuing felons in this category convictions have been rare and far between and sentences have been restricted to fines rather than confinement in prison.
The extensive existence of such laws in established and developed democracies , which other nations look to as models to follow, provides a continued justification for governments in the developing nations and elsewhere to enact and enforce such legislation notwithstanding the infrequency developed democracies resort to recourse to such laws for prosecutions.
On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights all member states have ratified and states at article 19 that;
Article 19.
<b>Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
For countries that ratified this article to maintain articles in their statutes that criminalise the right of citizens express their honest opinions about their President or some such other authorities on the pretext that it is defamatory or insulting of the officials is nothing short of hypocrisy.
In any event the practical difficulty that exists in trying to distinguish an insult from an expression of a negative yet honest opinion about such protected officials makes the crime of insult not only difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt but also open to manipulation by authorities to suppress dissent.
In developing countries like Zimbabwe in particular the law against defaming or insulting the person and office of the President has been notoriously abused by the present incumbent of the post to a point of absurdity.
The only sensible remedy to the abuse of the law now appears to be an outright repeal of the protection against insult and defamation extended to the Head of State.
This is so because the architecture of country’s political system is such that a Head of a political formation is sponsored into the National Presidential office by a party and is not compelled to relinquish party leadership on assumption of national office.
As consequence national interests are supplanted by sectarian party political interests of the Presidential incumbent and if he/she uses the national office to insult and discredit competing political formations inviting unsavory comments there from, the opponents are gagged by criminal charges for insulting the person or office of the President.
A classical example is when at Zanu PF meetings the Zanu PF President who also happens to be the National President Robert Mugabe hurls insults to the MDC calling them puppets and their leader a Tea Boy, Chematama and all sorts of insulting names and in turn MDC activists and leadership respond to that by sloganeering for his removal from office and calling him a Goblin, Despot, important and some such other insults.
Instead of taking it on the chin President Mugabe has increasingly sought to silence MDC opponents retaliating to his name calling by ordering their arrest and prosecution under section30 or 33 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act [Chapter 9:23].
This abuse of office by the President often receives plaudits from Zanu PF adherents and sympathisers on the grounds that it is un-African for the led to show disrespect towards their leaders and that it is in any event illegal and criminal.
Should the Presidency change from Zanu PF to the MDC as is likely to happen when the country holds free and fair election the same Zanu PF adherents currently holding this law in great esteem because they are immune from prosecution under it as they will have no reason to publicly chide President Mugabe will be the first ones to cry foul over this law.
The reason for that is easy to see. An MDC sponsored candidate in office as president might just be tempted to let Zanu PF taste their poisonous law which they have abused for decades by ordering security agents to arrest them whenever they publicly express negative sentiments about him and his office.
This is a bad law that must never be allowed to subsist.
Indeed Heads of State deserve to be held in high esteem by citizens because they are elected into office by millions of nationals who would feel insulted if their choice for leadership of the Nation is treated with disdain and contempt.
But such respect must be earned by the incumbent behaving like the statesman he is elected to project and desisting from dabbling in party political mudslinging with opponents from other political formations.
The minute a national President reduces himself to a party political activists he should cease to be protected by dubious laws suppressing opponents from treating him politically at peer level simply because he also has the title of National President when the object of ridicule will not be his presidential capacity or Personality but his party political activism position and personality.
Insulting or defaming Zanu PF President Robert Mugabe is not and must never be equated to insulting or defaming Zimbabwe President HE Robert Mugabe.
That is why it is imperative that the laws protecting the National President from insult must be repealed so that all party political leaders are subjected to equal political treatment without recourse to hiding behind national Presidential immunities against politicking.
No comments:
Post a Comment