The Constitutional Amendment No. 3 Bill (CAB3) has made parliamentary history after attracting contributions from more than 110 Members of Parliament, making it the most debated Bill ever considered by Zimbabwe’s legislature.
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi said the unprecedented level of participation reflects the extensive public consultations conducted before the Bill was introduced and demonstrates the strength of the country’s democratic and legislative processes.
Speaking on the progress of the debate, Ziyambi said Parliament deliberately expanded its consultation framework to ensure broader public participation.
“In the history of our Parliament, this is the most debated bill. We deliberately decided to have that direction because if you recall when we did public consultations in the past, we used to have one public consultation per province,” he said.
To enhance citizen involvement, Parliament widened the outreach programme to cover every administrative district in the country, allowing legislators to engage directly with communities and gather their views on the proposed constitutional amendments.
“This time around we increased the involvement, we had one public consultation per admin district, which means we deployed a large number of our honourable members to participate in the public consultation,” said Ziyambi.
The Minister said the broader consultations have had a direct impact on the quality and depth of the debate currently taking place in the National Assembly.
“The majority of our MPs always emphasise that they will be speaking on behalf of their constituencies and even cite proceedings of their public consultation,” he said.
According to Ziyambi, the active participation of legislators is a positive development that strengthens both constitutional democracy and the law-making process.
“We think it is healthy for constitutional democracy, it is healthy for the law-making process because it allows us to refine the legislation and come up with a Bill that has been scrutinised thoroughly by members of Parliament,” he said.
The Minister revealed that the number of legislators who have participated in the debate has already surpassed any previous parliamentary record.
“When I did the count, we were slightly over 100, around 110 MPs that have debated so far. In the history of our Parliament, I do not think we have ever had a bill that has those numbers,” he said.
Debate on the Constitutional Amendment No. 3 Bill is expected to resume when Parliament reconvenes, with more lawmakers still being afforded an opportunity to make their contributions.
“We are still happy to have a couple more MPs, those that are willing to debate again. So tomorrow, we will allow those that want to debate to go ahead,” Ziyambi said.
Once debate is concluded, the Minister will present his response to issues raised by legislators before the Bill advances to the next stage of the legislative process.
“I will then give my responding speech addressing issues that were raised by honourable members. And that will pave the way for us now to move to the committee stage of the bill,” he said.
MP Ziyambi noted that the timing of the committee stage will depend on how many legislators still wish to contribute to the debate.
“It is not in my hands, it is in the hands of those that want to debate,” he said.
The Constitutional Amendment No. 3 Bill is currently at the debate stage in the National Assembly, with Parliament expected to proceed to the committee stage once deliberations have been concluded. The record-breaking participation by legislators has already marked the Bill as one of the most extensively scrutinised pieces of legislation in Zimbabwe’s parliamentary history.
