President Mnangagwa can choose not to release t he Commission of Inquiry into the August 1 post-election violence report if he so chooses, a...
President Mnangagwa can choose not to release the Commission of Inquiry into the August 1 post-election violence report if he so chooses, according to his spokesman, George Charamba.He said the President was the sole recipient of the report.
“There is nothing at law that compels the President to release the report to the public or not to release it to the public. The discretion is his. Where he has a bit of a limit is in respect of how the Commission conducts its hearings in terms of the law.
“He is required by the Act to spell out that the Commission must conduct its hearings in camera otherwise the presumption of the law is that it’s through a public hearing and as you notice, the President in the interest of openness, of transparency and to ensure that the Commission itself operates in a way that shows integrity, he decided to make the hearings public, which is why they were televised.
“There are certain things that don’t make sense in terms of the way this matter has been handled and reported. Firstly, neither the executive summary nor the main report has been released. In other words, neither document is in the public domain, yet reading reports that are in the media one gets the sense that the executive summary or the main report has been released.
“I am in charge of Presidential communication and in spite of my nearness, I have not seen both reports, so I am just wondering how those that are speaking eloquently about both the executive summary and the main report are doing it and from what authority.
“The Act is very clear. The appointing authority of the Commission is the President and in terms of the Act, he is expected to provide terms of references and the President did both and in terms of the letter, he gave eight terms of reference to the Commission, all of which are very clear.”
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