Online Reporter
Farirai Machivenyika
Senior Reporter
The country moved a step closer to the abolishment of the death penalty after Senate passed the Death Penalty Abolition Bill on Wednesday with the Bill now awaiting President Mnangagwa’s signature to become law.
The Bill was sponsored by Dzivaresekwa legislator, Mr Edwin Mushoriwa as a Private Member’s Bill.
In his second reading speech, Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi said the death penalty was a foreign practice that came with colonialism.
“Culturally and historically, before colonisers came to our country, we had no death penalty.
“In vernacular, we would say ‘Mushonga wengozi kuiripa, kwete kuuraya’. Our culture does not allow us to kill someone because they have murdered someone. In Shona, we would say, ‘Ngozi inoripwa’.
“We believed that if one kills another, the spirit of the deceased would avenge for their death,” he said.
The minister added that the death penalty not only tormented the person to be executed, but even those involved in carrying out the execution.
“Many of us advocate for the death penalty, but I assure you, there is hardly a person in our country who would seek a job as a professional executioner no matter how high the reward can be.
“Secondly, it inflicts psychological torment, not only on the person to be executed, but often, even on the people involved somehow with execution.
He said President Mnangagwa, who escaped the hangman’s noose during the liberation struggle since he was still a minor also told them of the harrowing experiences persons on death row went through.
“His Excellency was once on death row and he told this gruelling story to us. To say that when he was at Harare Central Prison, they would randomly come to pick his colleagues for execution and nobody would know when it would be his turn.
“Once they had killed one comrade, they would then take out one prisoner under death row and give him the body and say go and dig on the court yard of Harare Prison, bury him and plant lawn on top and irrigate. That is what was happening,” Minister Ziyambi added.
The minister also said the country had over 60 inmates on death row with some of them having been there for over 10 years.
The country last carried out executions in 2005.
“It is an open question whether the death penalty actually deters crimes or not. We have had the death penalty for a long time and nobody would say that since we have had the death penalty on our statute books, we have reduced the number of people who commit murder in aggravating circumstances or terrorists.
“It does not deter. It is actually a question that is debatable and studies that have been carried out have indicated that in all jurisdictions where the death penalty is carried out, there is no reduction in crime. The actual number of murders is still the same even when there is the death penalty,” he said.
