Scores of inmates previously sentenced to death are being re-sentenced at the High Court following the abolition of the death penalty under the Death Penalty Abolition Act. President Mnangagwa signed the Bill into law on December 31, officially abolishing the death penalty for all crimes and requiring the re-sentencing of individuals currently on death row.
Twenty inmates have been scheduled for re-sentencing this month, according to a list from the High Court. Approximately 60 prisoners are on death row. The Act explicitly prohibits courts from imposing the death sentence for any offence and ensures that no death sentence, regardless of when it was imposed, will be carried out.
Zimbabwe’s last executions were carried out in 2005 when Stephen Chidhumo and Edgar Masendeke, infamous for their 1995 escape from Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison, were hanged. While no executions have occurred since, death sentences continued to be imposed in some cases until the recent legislative change.
The re-sentencing process requires the courts to consider all relevant circumstances, including the personal situations of the inmates, the length of time they have spent on death row, and the conditions of their incarceration. Murder convictions in aggravating circumstances will now result in sentences ranging from 20 years to life imprisonment.
The abolition of the death penalty severs a historical connection to its introduction during the colonial era in the 1880s under the British South Africa Company and later as a British colony.
Clause Two of the Act mandates that no court shall impose a death sentence for any offence and directs the Supreme Court to substitute any existing death sentence with a legally appropriate alternative.
“No court shall impose a sentence of death upon a person for any offence, whenever committed, but instead shall impose whatever other competent sentence is appropriate in the circumstances of the case.”
“The Supreme Court shall not confirm a sentence of death imposed upon an appellant, whenever that sentence may have been imposed, but instead shall substitute whatever other competent sentence is appropriate in the circumstances of the case.”
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