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Harare - Allowing Zimbabwe's parliament to make back-dated changes to labour laws could backfire, an opposition leader warned on Wednesday.
Welshman Ncube, the head of a breakaway faction of the Movement for Democratic Change, counts as one of few Zimbabwean politicians willing to say they are unhappy with the changes aimed at stopping a wave of job losses.
"Once that [making retrospective changes to the law] becomes acceptable then what will stop any government of the day from willy-nilly taking away our rights retrospectively?" Ncube, who is a lawyer, warned in a statement.
As outrage and fear over the more-than-20 000-and-counting job losses mounted, the lower house of parliament ignored an adverse legal report on the changes to Zimbabwe's labour laws on Tuesday and rail-roaded them through.
If adopted by the senate on Thursday and then approved by President Robert Mugabe, these changes will apply to all retrenchments since July 17, forcing employers to pay redundancy packages.
Firms and parastatals had gone ahead with the sackings on the basis of a Supreme Court ruling on July 17 that said they did not have to give the payouts.
The Employers' Confederation of Zimbabwe has already signalled that it is unhappy with the proposed changes.
Hinting that other laws might now be changed and backdated, Ncube said that it could be argued under Zimbabwe's 2013 constitution that one can only be punished for breaching a law that is already in place.
Ncube said: "When those who are asserting the unprincipled position that there is no restriction to the making of retrospective laws become victims of such laws they will be the first to cry foul."
Fortune Chasi, a ruling party MP who was part of the parliamentary legal committee that gave the amendments an adverse report said in a tweet late Tuesday: "It is not necessarily illegal for government to make a law that has a retrospective effect. However, it is something that is generally abhorred".
