Zimbabwe on the cusp of abolishing death penalty

Zimbabwe, which has not carried out the death sentence in almost two decades, has moved to abolish the death penalty altogether.

On 14 December, the government gazetted the Death Penalty Abolition Bill, setting in motion a legislative process that would finally put an end to the capital punishment that was introduced in the southern African nation by British colonial administrators in 1890.

“Notwithstanding any other law, no court shall impose a sentence of death upon a person for any offence, whenever committed, but instead shall impose whatever other competent sentence is appropriate in the circumstances of the case,” reads the mainstay clause of the Bill. 

“The Supreme Court shall not confirm a sentence of death imposed upon an appellant, whenever that sentence may have been imposed, but instead shall substitute [it with] whatever other competent sentence is appropriate in the circumstances of the case; no sentence of death, whenever imposed, shall be carried out.” 

Abolition Bill Follows Survey And Consultation

The Bill is a culmination of nationwide consultations carried out by the government on the death penalty in March 2023.

The death penalty has not been particularly popular in Zimbabwe. According to a 2018 survey conducted by international criminologist Dr Mai Sato in collaboration with the Mass Public Opinion Institute, most Zimbabweans would be happy to see its abolition.

Dr Mai Sato’s report on the survey showed that while a small majority (61 per cent) of the 1,200 Zimbabweans interviewed supported the retention of the death penalty, 80 per cent of those were clear that - should the government decide to abolish - they would accept government policy and, by and large, were not worried about negative repercussions from abolition. 

That study demonstrated that those who held strong opinions on the death penalty were not well-informed on its administration in practice; they knew little about how and when it was used, and based their support primarily on an erroneous belief in its deterrent effect.

“There appeared to be broad political agreement that abolition was desirable and achievable in the short term,” the researchers pointed out in a summary of the survey. 

The survey was commissioned by Veritas, a local NGO, which acts as a watchdog for democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law, human rights and justice. For years, it has campaigned for abolition of capital punishment in Zimbabwe.

Former President Favoured Death Penalty

The survey results showed that most Zimbabweans would want the country to do away with capital punishment, which the late former President Robert Mugabe favoured. 

“When exploring the reasons behind the support for the death penalty, it was striking that the ‘eye for an eye’ argument did not hold much traction with the Zimbabwean public,” states the report on the study. “Only 14 per cent of retentionists supported the death penalty for retributive reasons.

“Nor did the public think that the death penalty was an effective criminal justice policy, with 92 per cent of the Zimbabweans favouring policies other than ‘more executions’ for reducing violent crime rates.”

Veritas, together with other human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, have been running a longstanding campaign for abolition. And although Zimbabwe continues to retain the death penalty, there has been progress towards abolition. 

An unofficial moratorium on executions has been in force for 18 years, and the 2013 Constitution permits judges’ discretion on the imposition of the death penalty. 

Mugabe and his supporters opposed previous efforts to completely abolish capital punishment, however, resulting in the country’s 2013 Constitution that only exempts women and males below 18 and over 70 years old from being sent to the gallows. 

With widespread consensus across the political spectrum that it is high time the death penalty goes, the Bill’s passage is nearly assured when it goes for debate before Parliament. President Emmerson Mnangagwa, an abolitionist and a former death row prisoner himself, has consistently pushed for the abolition of the death penalty, and his party holds almost two-thirds of seats in Parliament.

In March last year, the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services reported that the country had 62 death row inmates. The figure has been dwindling over the years, as President Mnangagwa has granted amnesty to some while commuting the sentences of others to life imprisonment.

Global Trends on Abolition

Over the years, the African continent has been progressively moving towards abolition. Rwanda abolished the death penalty in 2007, Burundi and Togo in 2009, Gabon in 2010, Benin in 2012, Congo and Madagascar in 2015, Guinea in 2016 for ordinary crimes and 2017 for military crimes, Burkina Faso in 2018, Chad in 2020, Malawi and Sierra Leone in 2021, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Zambia in 2022 and Ghana in 2023.

Of the 16-member states in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), seven have abolished the death penalty entirely, and only one, Botswana, continues to carry out executions.

According to the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, as of mid-2023, a total of 144 countries had abolished the death penalty either in law or in practice. Of these, 112 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes while nine have abolished it for ordinary crimes only. Another 23 are considered abolitionists in practice as they have not carried out any executions in the past ten years.  

More than half the independent states in Africa, 29 out of 54 States, have completely abolished the death penalty. Only three, Botswana, South Sudan and Somalia, have carried out executions in the last two years.

Some 28 countries worldwide are abolitionist in practice, meaning they have not executed anyone for at least 10 years. At the same time, the number of retentionist countries, where the death penalty is retained, is gradually decreasing, currently standing at 55.

Image by Grant Durr.