The 2013 Constitution of Zimbabwe recognises local government as the lowest tier of government in a three tier arrangement. Thus, local government, composed by urban and rural local authorities, now owes its existence directly to the Constitution and not to legislation as was the case under the previous constitutional order. The Constitution assigns to local authorities the responsibility to ‘manage’ and ‘represent’ the affairs of people in their respective areas. Every local authority is given the ‘right to govern’ its jurisdiction with ‘all’ the necessary powers to do so, including devolved powers. Thus, the Constitution recognises that, for the benefits associated with decentralisation to be realised, local authorities require a certain measure of local autonomy. The autonomy which this Constitution affords to local government is however unknown and unexplored, especially from a constitutional law point of view. In this article, we measure the degree of local autonomy guaranteed by the 2013 Constitution.

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2013年《津巴布韦宪法》中的地方政府：定义地方自治的边界

2013年的《津巴布韦宪法》承认地方政府在三级安排中是最低级的政府。因此，由城乡地方当局组成的地方政府现在的存在直接归功于宪法，而不是像以前的宪法秩序那样，归功于立法。《宪法》赋予地方当局“管理”和“代表”各自地区人民事务的责任。每个地方当局都被赋予“管辖权”，拥有“一切”必要的权力，包括权力下放。因此，《宪法》认识到，要实现与权力下放有关的利益，地方当局需要某种程度的地方自治。然而，尤其是从宪法法的角度来看，该宪法赋予地方政府的自治权是未知的和未开发的。在本文中，我们衡量了2013年宪法所保障的地方自治程度。