Acta Universitatis Danubius. Juridica, Vol 14, No 2 (2018)

Abstract

Various challenges have been associated with the violation of civil and political rights in Zimbabwe before and after its political independence from the white minority rule in 1980 to date. Thus, despite the fact that these civil and political rights were somewhat protected in the Lancaster House Constitution of Zimbabwe 1979 (SI 1979/1600) as amended by Act 1 of 2009 which introduced amendment 19 of 2009 (Lancaster House Constitution) and subsequently, under the Zimbabwe Constitution Amendment Act 20 of 2013 (Zimbabwe Constitution 2013), various violations of these rights could still be perpetrated by the offenders against the members of the public, especially, during elections in Zimbabwe. Given this background, such civil and political rights violations are discussed in two parts: firstly Part I of this article analyses historical aspects of civil and political rights abuses, constitutional obligations arising from civil and political rights and legislative-related challenges associated with the protection of such rights in Zimbabwe. Thereafter, Part II of the next article discusses politically-related challenges, economic-related challenges, constitutional-related challenges as well as regional and international law challenges pertaining to the protection of such rights in Zimbabwe.