Constitution-making

The judge who chaired it was considered too close to the ruling party to be independent.
For a country that has already accepted the view that constitution-making must be led by a body beyond Parliament, it is difficult to understand why the signatories of the GPA settled for a Select Committee. The safest conclusion to make is that the signatories were not interested in a people-driven Constitution but in a “quick-fix constitution” of the Lancaster House mould hoping that their combined popularity will cow people into believing that we were in the dawn of a new and people-driven Constitution.
What we are saying about the Select Committee will not change even if the element of co-chairing by the main political parties were to be abandoned in favour of an “independent” chairperson drawn from outside Parliament.
The substance of the matter is that this process, to be people-driven, must be led by an independent body of all key stakeholders.
The attempt by the current process to have a claim to the principle of “all stakeholders” is sickening.
Civil society is given room to participate in what are called “sub-committees” of the Select Committee. Each sub-committee is chaired by a Member of Parliament. The Select Committee has the sole prerogative to define “civil society”. 
It alone determines which groups of “civil society” participate in the sub-committees.  Not only is the role of the sub-committees vague, but the Select Committee is not bound by submissions of the sub-committees.
To make the role of civil society even more ridiculous, the Select Committee, after working for three months without any input from anyone, will then convene an ill-defined “All Stakeholders Conference” to consult. The Select Committee is not bound by any views expressed at the All Stakeholders Conference.
An analysis of the scope of involvement of civil society shows that, while conscious of the need to gain legitimacy for their process, the politicians have made a firm decision to control the outcome.  This is why they have rejected any bigger role for other stakeholders.  This is the opposite of a “people-driven” process. 
The third test the current process has failed is the phenomenon brought by what is called the Kariba Draft Constitution. We will continue from this aspect next week.

– Dr Lovemore Madhuku is the chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly.