Rights group welcomes move to amend bill rights through referendum

Disability Rights Watch national coordinator Bruce Chooma has said the Government’s intention to amend the bill rights through a referendum is a welcome move.

Justice Minister Mulambo Haimbe said in Lusaka recently that government was looking at amending the bill rights which flopped through the referendum.

Chooma said the referendum to amend the bill should be held separately from the general elections as he urged the Ministry of Justice to start building consensus.

“This (referendum) is a welcoming move, having extended bill rights will help remove barriers to access to human rights and our view is that let that be done away from the general election because from experience, voters tend to be confused,” he said.

Chooma said in an interview on Wednesday that the amendment of the bill of rights should not have any political connotation for it to succeed.

He said the Ministry of Justice should accommodate all the stakeholders including political parties, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) including ordinary citizens.

“The Ministry of Justice should extend an olive branch to political parties, Members of Parliament from both the opposition and ruling party so that the referendum doesn’t flop like previously,”Chooma said.

He said religious groups should also be involved to allay fears of introducing alien recommendations that they fear might infiltrate the bill of rights.

Chooma said stakeholders should know that the objective of the referendum was to ensure that social, economic and cultural rights were embedded in the constitution to protect the vulnerable in society.

“The Ministry of Justice has a bigger task of ensuring that all the fears stakeholders might have on the bill of rights and the referendum are dispelled before a referendum is held,” he said.

Chooma said his association would like to see expanded human rights for the disability movement and other human rights advocates’ jobs to be easy.

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