President Mnangagwa committed to abolish death penalty

June 21, 2021

Hosia Mviringi

President has said that he has forever been opposed to capital punishment, even though it still remains on our statutes to date

Speaking at the funeral wake of late National Hero Father Emmanuel Ribeiro, President Mnangagwa reveals how he has 'sat' on execution orders for the whole seventeen years he served as Justice Minister die to his conviction against death penalty.

President Mnangagwa is a victim of trauma after surviving the gallows by a mere technicality, that he had not attained the age of majority, then at 21.

Having watched colleagues fall by the noose at Harare Central Prison, the President feels that it is improper and grossly unfair to take someone's life.

But why does Zimbabwe continue to have the law on the statutes?

Background

Having travelled a long torturous road together with Father Ribeiro and former President Robert Mugabe, and having endured traumatizing experiences of having to see colleagues fall by the noose everyday, President Mnangagwa made a commitment to himself and to his colleague never to condemn anyone to death in his lifetime.

After a discussion with the then President Cde Robert Mugabe to scrap the death penalty from the statutes, it happened that Cde Mugabe favoured the democratic way of subjecting the proposal to a vote to seek for consensus.

But according to an account by President Mnangagwa those for capital punishment prevailed not once but twice.

So his bid to have death penalty scrapped was delayed until now.

Father Ribeiro, as prison Chaplin, could have endured much greater pain and trauma having to pray for and counsel condemened inmates before they were hanged. He could relate to the anxiety, fear, hopelessness and depression that engulfed an inmate before they were condemned to the noose.

Thus it will be understandable that these are some of the things the two would reminisce about when they finally met again on the other side of the revolutionary struggles.

In his own words, President President Mnangagwa confessed to sitting on numerous execution orders, during his 17 years as Justice Minister, which he was supposed to sign and take to the President for consent.

"I sat on those execution orders for the seventeen years as Justice Minister. Because the procedure is that Justice Minister has to sign the orders before taking them to the President for final consent to have someone hanged. This I did because the act ( condemning someone to death) goes against my conscience," said President.

The President confessed that if he could have his way, he would scrap the law overnight. But due to democratic handicaps, due processes of law making have to be followed to the letter.

President Mnangagwa is not alone in his conviction. In fact he has been ahead of the pack in calling for the scrapping of this cruel piece of law in Africa and the world.

Resultantly, the African Union's Court on Human and People's Rights on November 28, 2019, passed a ruling which condemned the death penalty as "patently unfair" because it is a convict's right to be heard and and they too have a right to life.

The Court also outlawed execution by hanging , as it was deemed to be cruel and tortuous undue to the degree of suffering involved and endured in the process.

Some countries on the continent still keep the death penalty, probably as a deterrent as most of them are reluctant to apply it. These countries are called abolitionists and Zimbabwe is a proud member of this group of countries which uphold the sanctity of life.