19 September 2006 No.33-10 - Zimbabwe Parliament

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87 Announcements By Mr Speaker 19TH September, 2006 Announcements By Mr Speaker 88 PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE Tuesday, 19 September, 2006 The House of Assembly met at a Quarter- past Two o’clock p.m. PRAYERS (MR. SPEAKER in the Chair) ANNOUNCEMENTS BY MR SPEAKER DEATH OF HON AARON BALOYI MR SPEAKER: I have to inform the House of the death of Hon Baloyi, Member of Parliament for Chiredzi South Constituency on Friday, 15 September, 2006. I invite all hon members to rise and observe a minute of silence in respect of the late hon member. All hon members stood up in silence. MEETING WITH SEDCO OFFICIALS MR SPEAKER: I have to inform all women Parliamentarians that the meeting with the SEDCO officials which was scheduled for tomorrow, 20 September, 2006 at 1700 hours in the Government Caucus Room has been cancelled. You will be advised for the new dates in due course. SECOND READING CRIMINAL PROCEDURE AND EVIDENCE AMENDMENT BILL THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAME- NTARY AFFAIRS: Mr Speaker, the Bill before the Honourable Members seeks to amend the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act [Chapter 9:07]. The Act provides for the procedures to be used in a criminal case and the admissibility, or otherwise, of the evidence produced before a court of law. The Bill will abolish the preparatory examination procedure. The preparatory examination procedure is no longer in use. The practice, which has been adopted, has been one of ‘direct proceedings.’ The amendments therefore are to recognise a practise that was long adopted. The Bill will make other consequential amendments in line with the abolition of the preparatory examination procedure. Mr Speaker, with the abolition of the preparatory examination 3
89 Announcements By Mr Speaker 19TH September, 2006 Announcements By Mr Speaker 90 [Mr Speaker] procedure, certain existing provisions are being retained but are to be amended so that they only apply to the confirmation procedure. Clauses 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 of the Bill will achieve this objective. These are on the powers of the magistrate to order a parent of guardian to be present at the confirmation proceedings where the accused is a juvenile, and provisions for the securing of a witness in confirmation proceedings. The provision excluding the public from attending confirmation proceedings will be repealed, so that these will be held in open court for the sake of transparency. Mr Speaker, Clauses 9 to 12 will repeal and replace the existing provisions governing the granting of bail and will codify and reform the existing law on the granting and withholding of bail by the courts. The courts have, on many occasions in the past, stated the circumstances under which it is in the interest of justice not to release an accused person on bail. The codification of the circumstances on which bail can be granted will be beneficial to the judicial officers, prosecutors, defence counsel, the accused and the public at large. Mr Speaker, currently the Medical Report Form, which is admissible as evidence at a criminal trial in child 4 sexual abuse cases, can only be filled in by a Medical Practitioner. This is problematic in Rural or District hospitals where a Medical Practitioner cannot always be present. As a measure to by-pass this problem, Clause 23 of the Bill enables qualified nurses to complete the Medical Report Forms, in relation to all victims of sexual abuse who have been examined or treated by them. This will assist in speeding up the hearing of sexual abuse cases, which have risen in recent years to alarming levels. The Criminal Law Code provides that in all cases a person convicted of a sexual offence must be tested for HIV infection. This provision is implemented through the medical practitioners and the difficulty as stated above, is that these may not be available. Clause 25 of the Bill provides that a qualified nurse is competent to conduct tests upon a person convicted of a sexual offence. This is for purposes of simplifying the enforcement of this mandatory provision. Since the preparatory examination procedure had its own advantages, certain provisions are being retained but modified to make up for its abolition. The evidence led at the preliminary examinations could be admissible under certain conditions,
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19 September 2006 No.33-10 - Zimbabwe Parliament

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