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EU urges Zimbabwe to speed up realignment of laws to new constitution

Xinhua, September 1, 2016 Adjust font size:

The European Union on Wednesday urged the Zimbabwe government to speed up alignment of laws to the new constitution that was adopted in 2013.

The EU said the pace of realigning the laws should move faster since the bloc together with Switzerland and Norway had provided funding and technical assistance for the process.

The three partners launched the project called "Strengthening the Constitutional Legislative Process" worth over 2 million Euros early last year to help Zimbabwe align its laws to the new supreme law.

The project is being implemented by the Ministry of Justice in collaboration with the Centre for Applied Legal Research (CALR).

Through the project, the much needed financial and technical support is available, government lawyers have been trained while CALR has a network of senior lawyers available to provide assistance, the EU said.

There are about 400 pieces of legislation that need to be realigned of which 159 have so far been completed as at June this year.

"The EU calls upon the Government to step up the process of alignment of laws in order to make the Constitution an uncontested reality for the people, and to relieve the courts of unnecessary cases challenging the constitutionality of existing acts and laws," said EU ambassador in Zimbabwe Van Damme at the launch of an information portal in order to inform citizens on progress in the alignment process.

The country's new constitution replaced the 1979 Lancaster House Constitution that was adopted prior to Zimbabwe's independence from Britain in 1980. Endit