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Adelaide Moyo, Chronicle Reporter
THE government has aligned about 150 laws with the Constitution, the Attorney General, Prince Machaya, has said.

Machaya told a meeting of Civil Society Organisations Consortium in Victoria Falls recently that since the adoption of the new constitution in 2013, the Inter-Ministerial Technical committee (IMT) has amended a total of 154 laws out of the 206 that were identified for re-alignment with the new Constitution.

“Initial research in our statutes has revealed that out of the 396 laws, 206 need to be re-aligned with the Constitution.

Out of these, 154 have been realigned through the General Laws Amendment Bill, Public Debt Management Act and the National Prosecution Authority Act,” Machaya said.

He said line Ministries initiated the process under the guidance of the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs.

“We haven’t applied any criteria but our approach has been to get as much legislation as possible to Parliament.

Basically, all we’ve been saying is whatever is ready should go without favouring any particular law,” Machaya said.

He commended the partnership between the government and civil society organisations, saying it enhances his office’s and the Justice Ministry’s work.

The Civil Society Organisations Consortium is composed of 44 civil society organisations which have partnered with  the government in the re-alignment of laws.

The Victoria Falls meeting was meant to formalise the partnership.

Speaking at the same occasion, Zimbabwe Institute executive director Isaac Maphosa said the partnership was important as the government could not go it alone in the law re-alignment process.

“We’ve different roles as civil society but we realised we needed to be part of the process of constitutionalism.

“Our calling was to be more objective, practical and work for nation building.

“As civil society we felt we need to be the watchdog of what government does but we also felt that we don’t need to bark from the sideline but to  be involved in the process and help with the constitutional process,” Maphosa said.