Highly controversial new legislation being introduced by the Smith regime had its third reading in the Rhodesian House of Assembly on 2 September this year. The Indemnity and Compensation Bill sets out to prevent civil or criminal proceedings being brought against the regime or its employees — including the security forces — for any act done in "good faith" in the course of suppressing "terrorism". A second major provision empowers the State President, Mr. Clifford Dupont, to suspend any such proceedings that have already been initiated against a servant of the state. Thirdly, the Bill provides for any person who has suffered loss or injury in circumstances to which these terms apply, to put in a claim for compensation to a special Board appointed for the purpose, as an alternative to going through the courts in the conventional way.
The Indemnity and Compensation Bill, in short, removes from the judiciary the common law safeguards which would ordinarily control the actions of the security forces and confers discretionary powers instead upon members of the Rhodesian Cabinet. It has been widely criticised, both in Zimbabwe and outside, for the protection it apparently gives to the military and police to commit atrocities unchecked by the prospect of legal proceedings.
During its second reading on 28 August, the Bill was sharply opposed by African members of the House, who pointed out that its provisions cut across the rule of law. Over the weeks that followed their protests were joined by Anglican, Roman Catholic and Methodist church leaders, the former Federal Chief Justice, Sir Robert Tredgold, and many ordinary citizens. Two Anglican bishops, the Rt. Rev. Paul Burrough of Mashonaland and the Rt. Rev. Mark Wood of Matabeleland, together with the District Superintendent of the Methodist Church, the Rev. Andrew Ndhlela, issued a joint statement supporting those who regarded the Bill as "an ill-timed and ill-constructed piece of legislation".
In a statement issued on 31 August, the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) condemned the state's failure to make the terms of the Bill available for public study and comment before putting them before parliament. They pointed to the nebulous, ill-defined and subjective character of such critical phrases in the Bill as "good faith", "terrorism" and the "maintenance of law and order". Above all, the integrity of the judicial system was being dangerously impaired.
In an article in the Rhodesia Herald, Sir Robert Tredgold (who in 1960 resigned in protest at the introduction of the notorious Law and Order (Maintenance) Act argued that the sole precedent for the Indemnity Act which could be said to bear more than a remote resemblance to it was the South African Indemnity Act of 1961. "So what we are now doing", he went on, "is taking yet another step in the assimilation of our laws to the draconian laws that South Africa has deemed it necessary to pass to support its system of apartheid".
The determination with which the Rhodesian Front is prepared to force through measures to expand and consolidate the state machinery for political oppression became apparent during the later stages of the Bill. On 2 September, Mr. Ronald Sadomba, the Independent African MP for Nemakonde, gave notice of a motion calling upon the House of Assembly to deplore "the atrocities being perpetrated by the security forces throughout the country" and to appoint an independent commission of inquiry to investigate such incidents.
(On 12 June, for example, 21 African civilians, according to the CCJP, had been killed when security forces opened fire at Karima Kraal, near Mount Darwin.) Mr. Sadomba's motion was never debated. On 4 September the Rhodesian Front used its huge majority in the House to strike the motion from the order paper. Proposing its discharge, Mr. R. Cowper, Minister of the Public Service, said that it "defied comprehension" that any Rhodesian could put such a motion forward during the present climate of anti-terrorist war.
The House of Assembly has now adjourned until 17 February 1976. Meanwhile, the Indemnity and Compensation Bill has been temporarily blocked by the Senate, which on 17 September approved a report from its Legal Committee that sections of the Bill were inconsistent with the Declaration of Rights which forms part of the constitution.
