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The Zimbabwe Constitution Select Committee (Copac) is busy working on a draft document, it has now emerged that most people who made inputs during the body’s countrywide outreach meetings want the maximum age for a presidential candidate to be 70 years as at the time of polling.
If approved by the three political parties in the coalition government, this clause would effectively bar President Robert Mugabe (pictured above), who turns 88 next month, from contesting in the next elections later this year or 2013.

They left in droves and denigrated Zimbabwe to unimaginable levels, seeking political asylum or refugee status, assuming they will never return.

But analysts say the increasing rate at which Zimbabweans are flocking back home, despite having labelled the country as “mismanaged and undemocratic”, smacks of hypocrisy.
Critics also say the move by the returning Zimbabweans flies in the face of the nations that attempted to have Zimbabwe isolated on the pretext there was no rule of law in the country.

The turn of the new millennium witnessed an exodus of Zimbabweans who sought political and economic asylum or refugee status in other countries.

American Ambassador to Zimbabwe Mr Charles Ray has said Washington and Harare should engage in dialogue to end a decade of "corrosive and antagonistic" political and economic relations. His remarks come barely a month after Washington added two diamond firms, Mbada Diamonds and Marange Resources on the sanctions list.
Speaking during an editor's roundtable in Harare, Mr Ray said the bad relations between Harare and Washington have not benefited anyone.
"Over the years, we let our relationship erode and began talking more to ourselves than each other. That really has not gotten us very far; instead it led us to replace the sharing of information with assumptions that were not necessarily true," he said.

Mr Ray said he was in Zimbabwe to advance US interests and "to get things done".

Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai does not have constitutional powers to remove police chief Augustine Chihuri and Defence Forces Commander Constantine Chiwenga from office, even though the power-sharing Global Political Agreement (GPA) allows him to have a say in their appointments, a research think-tank has said.

Tsvangirai’s MDC and the breakaway MDC faction led by Industry minister Welshman Ncube are pushing for the appointment of a new Commissioner-General of Police and a new head of the Defence Forces when the terms of the incumbents Augustine Chihuri and Constantine Chiwenga expire.

AN inquest is a judicial inquiry into the cause of an unexpected death. Before the inquiry is held, police fully investigate the death and compile a docket which they then forward to the courts for the inquiry to be held.

Inquests into the cause of death of several prominent and ordinary people have been held in Zimbabwe.
Such inquests include that for the then Minister of Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation Border Gezi, who died in a road accident in 2001.
The inquest was held before a Gweru provincial magistrate sitting as a coroner.
Cde Gezi - who was also the Zanu-PF national political commissar - died on April 28, 2001, 10km outside Mvuma when his official Mercedes Benz veered off the road and uprooted two trees before stopping.Cde Gezi was declared a national hero and was buried at the National Heroes Acre.

THE Zimbabwe National Liberation War Collaborators Association has threatened Copac (Zimbabwe's Constitutional making body) with a lawsuit for failure to use people's views in drafting the new constitution. The Zimbabwe National Liberation War Collaborators Association  lawyers Guni and Guni Legal Practitioners have written to the three co-chairpersons of Copac demanding that they use the views of the people.The co-chairpersons are Cde Munyaradzi Mangwana (Zanu-PF), Mr Douglas Mwonzora (MDC-T) and Mr Edward Mkhosi (MDC).

The Zimbabwe Judiciary has adopted a code of conduct to regulate judges and other judicial officers to prevent corruption.

Officially opening the 2012 legal year in Harare the capital city of Zimbabwe yesterday, the Deputy Chief Justice of Zimbabwe Luke Malaba said the code of ethics was adopted last month after years of debating its relevance.

Zimbabwe has banned the sale of second-hand underwear. A new law has made it illegal to import or sell used pants, according to the Independent News Day newspaper.

It is now forbidden to import 'second-hand undergarments of any type form or description - whether purchased, donated or procured in any other manner.

The hand-me- down knicker band was introduced by finance minister Tendai Biti, who said he was shocked to discover many Zimbabweans in the poverty-stricken country bought used underwear from flea markets or stalls.