Zimbabwe’s Human Rights Commission handling complains effectively

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The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) looks back at a successful 2015. More than 400 complaints have been handled, a complaints manual ensures efficiency and a new act is underway

For Zimbabweans, making complaints about human rights violations and maladministration has become a better and more transparent process than previously. The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission ’s secretariat has dealt with more than 400 cases since they became operational in 2014, after existing mostly on paper since 2010.

50 of the 400 newly received cases are open, while the secretariat reduced the number of inherited cases from the former public protector from 550 to 450. The received cases are mostly on property rights, land disputes and labour related cases (e.g. unfair dismissals) and ZHRC resolves the majority by mediating between the alleged and the complainant - so far without litigations.

Fact box
ZHRC was established in 2010 by the first ZHRC Act, and nine Commissioners were sworn in on duty.The current ZHRC Act is the second and was gazetted in October 2012.Zimbabwe had a new Constitution adopted in 2013.ZHRC and DIHR began working together in April 2013. Since then, DIHR has been heavily involved in the capacity development of ZHRC.ZHRC established a secretariat in 2014, with full time staffs supporting the nine commissioners.ZHRC is the National Human Rights Institutions of Zimbabwe and has to promote, protect and enforce Human Rights in Zimbabwe.ZHRC’s key mandate areas are:- to handle complaints on human rights abuses and maladministration;- to monitor and develop reports on the general Human Rights Situation in Zimbabwe, and more specifically on places of detention;- to disseminate the knowledge of Human Rights in Zimbabwe via Human Rights Education and Human Rights Research.

“We are very encouraged by the efforts of the commission. The secretariat had to start from scratch, and further inherited a large number of old cases, but the will and effort of staff has been impressive,” Mads Gottlieb from the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) says.

DIHR has been supporting the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission since 2013, helping the commission in setting up the secretariat in an efficient manner.

New manual streamlines processes

Incoming cases are handled systematically and presented for the Commissioners once a month. An important part of the secretariat’s success is the development of a complaints handling manual – ensuring consistency and efficiency from case to case, that everyone knows their role and that everything is handled transparent and described.

“The manual is a big help in securing that cases are handled properly every time. The commission handles each case systematically, and also has a system for referring cases to other institutions – it is absolutely pivotal, that there is consistency in how similar cases are handled,” Lis Dhundale from DIHR says.

New ZHRC Act in the making

Another possible great leap forward that the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission can soon take, deals with a revision of the Act on the ZHRC. The Act is being aligned to the new Zimbabwean Constitution (from 2013), which gives the commission the opportunity to strengthen its mandate and give ZHRC even larger independency when protecting and promoting human rights in Zimbabwe.