Constitution of Zimbabwe: Rights

Every human has rights

The Protection of the Right to Life

• No one shall be intentionally and unlawfully killed
• It is only lawful to kill a person in certain circumstances which include when carrying out a death sentence, when defending others from violence, when carrying out lawful arrest and when suppressing a demonstration
• Women, children younger than 21 years of age when they committed the crime and adults older than 70 years when they committed the crime are not be executed according to the new constitution

The Protection of the Right to Personal Liberty

• No person can be denied his/her right to live in freedom except when they have to live in a number of situations, for example, if a person has been sentenced to imprisonment, is a person requires treatment for an infectious disease, insanity etc, and in order to prevent a person who is not a citizen from illegally entering Zimbabwe
• If a person has been unlawfully detained they can claim damages

Rights of Arrested and Detained Persons

• It must be noted that a person who has been arrested also has rights which include, the right to see a lawyer, to be told without delay the reason for their arrest and to be tries as soon as possible

Right to human dignity

• Every person has inherent dignity in their private and public life, and the right to have that dignity respected and protected

Right to personal security

• Every person has the right to bodily and psychological integrity, which includes the right to freedom from all forms of violence from public or private sources, subject to any other provision of this Constitution, to make decisions concerning reproduction and not to be subjected to medical or scientific experiments, or to the extraction or use of their bodily tissue, without their informed consent

Right to privacy                                                                                                                                      

Every person has the right to privacy, which includes the right not to have:

1. Their home, premises or property entered without their permission
2. Their person, home, premises or property searched
3. Their possessions seized
4. The privacy of their communications infringed
5. Their health condition disclose

Access to information

• Every Zimbabwean citizen or permanent resident, including juristic persons and the Zimbabwean media, has the right of access to any information held by the State or by any institution or agency of government at every level, in so far as the information is required in the interests of public accountability
• Every person, including the Zimbabwean media, has the right of access to any information held by any person, including the State, in so far as the information is required for the exercise or protection of a right
• Every person has a right to the correction of information, or the deletion of untrue, erroneous or misleading information, which is held by the State or any institution or agency of the government at any level, and which relates to that person

Language and culture

• Every person has the right to use the language of their choice and to participate in the cultural life of their choice but no person exercising these rights may do so in a way that is inconsistent with the constitution

Political rights

• Every Zimbabwean citizen has the right to free, fair and regular elections for any elective public office

Equality and non-discrimination

• All persons are equal before the law and have the right to equal protection and
  benefit of the law
• Women and men have the right to equal treatment, including the right to equal
  opportunities in political, economic, cultural and social spheres
• Every person has the right not to be treated in an unfairly discriminatory
  manner on such grounds as their nationality, race, colour, tribe, place of birth,
  ethnic or social origin, language, class, religious belief, political affiliation,
  opinion, custom, culture, sex, gender, marital status, age, pregnancy, disability or
  economic or social status, or whether they were born in or out of wedlock

Right to education

• Every citizen and permanent resident of Zimbabwe has a right to basic State-funded education, including adult basic education and further education, which the State, through reasonable legislative and other measures, must make progressively available and accessible
• Every person has the right to establish and maintain, at their own expense, independent educational institutions of reasonable standards, provided they do not discriminate on any ground prohibited by the Constitution

Right to health care

• Every citizen and permanent resident of Zimbabwe has the right to have access to basic health-care services, including reproductive health-care services.
• Every person living with a chronic illness has the right to have access to basic healthcare services for the illness
• No person may be refused emergency medical treatment in any health-care institution
• The State must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within the limits of the resources available to it, to achieve the progressive realisation of the rights set out in this section

Marriage rights

• Every person who has attained the age of eighteen years has the right to found a family
• No person may be compelled to enter into marriage against their will
• Persons of the same sex are prohibited from marrying each other in Zimbabwe

To access more topics go to the History Notes page.