Public Order and Security Act (Zimbabwe)
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The Public Order and Security Act (POSA) is a piece of legislation introduced in Zimbabwe in 2002 by a ZANU-PF dominated parliament.[1] The act was amended in 2007 and repealed in 2018, after being replaced by the Maintenance of Peace and Order Act.
Jonathan Moyo is reported as having been one of the chief architects of the act, as he served as the Minister of Information and Publicity.[2] Moyo has denied such an accusation citing the fact he has never held office in the relevant ministry (law and order legislations come from the Ministry of Home Affairs). Other individuals allegedly involved in the bill's passage include President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Dr. Dumiso Dabengwa, and John Landa Nkomo.
Many regard POSA as an act that helped Robert Mugabe consolidate his power. The law gave untold powers to the police, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) and enabled them to squash political dissent at a large scale.
POSA has since been applied against demonstrations by the government. On 1 August 2018 the law was invoked,[3] resulting in the army fatally shooting protesters against alleged rigging of the Zimbabwean general election, 2018. Although the law has since been repealed, its main provisions were retained and incorporated into the 2019 Maintenance of Peace and Order Act.
When POSA was passed by the ZANU-PF dominated parliament in 2002, it was not an entirely new law, as it served to replace the Law and Order Maintenance Act of 1960 (LOMA). This law predated the independence of Zimbabwe, and is a relic of oppressive Rhodesian era legislation.[4] Although the law intended to serve the white minority in Rhodesia, its broad application proved useful to Mugabe who used the law to suppress dissent after he came to power. While LOMA originated in the 1960s, efforts to pass the Public Order and Security Bill began in 1988 when a version was passed in Parliament, though it initially faced opposition from President Mugabe. This version was spearheaded by Emmerson Mnangagwa who, as Justice Minister, worked alongside Dr. Dumiso Dabengwa, who served as Home Affairs Minister.[5] However, as this version rejected by President Mugabe, they can only be credited for the early version of the bill, that later underwent major revisions before it was reintroduced in 2001 and ultimately signed into law by Mugabe in 2002.[6] In a 2018 article for The Chronicle, Dabengwa claimed to be the "brain child" of POSA, however he suggests that the changes made by his predecessor John Nkomo diluted his version of the bill, and made it more similar to the original piece of Rhodesian legislation LOMA.[5]