The Law Society of Zimbabwe taps into International Labour Standards

(ILO News) Harare : The ILO’s training workshop, led by Ms Christina Holmgren - International Labour Standards Specialist and Professor Lovemore Madhuku, a Zimbabwe Labour Law Expert, shed light on rights at work with a particular focus on gender equality.

The focus on women’s working conditions seeks to improve policies and practices, which create barriers to women’s full access to work and decent work conditions.

By bringing together legal practitioners for this workshop, it is envisaged that their capacity to refer to ratified international labour standards for jurisprudence, will be enhanced’ and with time, confidence in handling gender related labour cases with be strengthened. A wide reference by legal practitioners during court proceedings is also expected to raise the awareness of Judiciary at large to the existence of these Conventions and to how they can usefully inspire court decisions.

The training has been convened as part of the implementation of the Government of Sweden funded United Nations Joint Programme for Gender Equality (JPGE) programme in which the ILO is focusing on women’s economic empowerment and women worker’s rights; with UNDP and UN Women on women’s political participation and influence and national accountability on gender equality pillars, respectively.

There were high expectations from the training programme. Some of the shared comments were centred around practical guidance on how to integrate international labour standards into local law; what strategies the ILO employed to ensure that both ratified and unratified conventions were included into domestic law and what steps would be taken for their ratification; while others wanted to know whether the labour law of the country was in compliance with international labour conventions and how the ILO will ensure uniform judicial interpretation of the labour standards. The participants also noted that the judiciary relied heavily on the Constitution of the country, the Labour Act and decided cases to reach judgements, and were curious to know how the ILO would persuade them to refer to international labour standards, more so as most were not yet domesticated. Others wanted to know how far the issue of standards had been embraced in other countries, with one calling for the setting up of an International Labour Appellate Court.

Expressing appreciation to the ILO for this training, the President of the Law Society of Zimbabwe, Ms Vimbai Nyemba noted that it was the first ever such an activity between the Society and ILO and that “armed with this new and rich knowledge there is a promise that our quality of labour litigation will improve”. She also acknowledged that the training was in line with the Law Society’s annual requirement for continual legal education for its members
In addition to helping realise the enshrined rights of workers, the training was in itself a contribution to the economic recovery of the country since workers play an integral role in the economy of any prosperous society.
Acknowledging the role of lawyers as human rights defenders, the Law Society was particularly appreciative of the JPGE’s focus on gender equality. Ms Nyemba encouraged the ILO to extend the programme to more lawyers and all the players involved with workers’ rights.
In response, Ms Hopolang Phororo, the ILO Country Director for Namibia and Zimbabwe said that “the 2013 Constitution of Zimbabwe provides a platform upon which international labour standards can be used to enrich the legal discourse in Zimbabwe. We recognise that this discourse can only take place if lawyers such as yourselves are provided with exposure to the standards and directed to materials which they can use for legal arguments. The recent constitutional challenge to maternity provisions shows that there is potential for use of international labour standards to argue pertinent labour issues in the various courts. As part of this training, we will provide you with insights on how you can access key resources that can assist you in your legal drafting.”
She thanked the Embassy of Sweden for supporting the initiative under the United Nations Joint Programme for Gender Equality’ which had enabled widening of the discussions on international labour standards and gender equality to the Law Society and other stakeholders.