Parliament passes Police Bill amid protests from opposition MPs, and Civil Society

The National Assembly has passed a Police Bill which gives powers to police officers to carry out searches on the country’s citizens without a court warrant. The bill, which was passed in parliament on 2 December 2009 only allows the law enforcers to make a recording of such an exercise.

The bill has been passed amid protests from opposition members of parliament, who argued that it was too technical; hence the need for further consultations with lawyers. Government used its numerical advantage in parliament to pass the bill at the expense of the opposition’s dissatisfaction. In response to the opposition’s concerns, Chairperson of the Legal Affairs Committee of parliament Henry Phoya said the committee conducted its work as mandated by the National Assembly.
 
“We critiqued some clauses in the bill that the House felt were not clear. The spirit of the bill has not changed. We have just proposed amendments which will render clear some ambiguities in the bill which were noted by the House,” he told the Daily Times.
 
The police have in the past been accused by members of the public of searching houses of suspects without a court warrant. Victims of such unlawful searches included politicians, journalists and other suspects.
 
Meanwhile, the current composition of parliament where the opposition is in minority is being accused of using its majority to tamper with the country’s Constitution. The accusation follows the passing of another bill, the Local Polls Bill which gives powers to the president to set a date for local government elections at a time of his own choosing. Under normal circumstances, the elections are supposed to take place one year after the general elections but they haven’t been held since the 2004 Presidential and Parliamentary elections. The media also speculated that President Bingu wa Mutharika’s ruling Democratic Party (DPP) was planning to use its powers in parliament to change the current presidential term from five to seven years, claims that were denied by the party’s officials.
 
Enactment of the Local Polls Bill has attracted the wrath of civil society organizations who have since appealed to President not to assent to the bill.

Reagan Malumo
Programme Officer: Media Freedom Monitoring and Research
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Regional Secretariat
21 Johann Albrecht St
Private Bag 13386
Windhoek
Namibia
Phone: +264 61 232 975
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