Review of Public Administration and Management

Kingston Magaya

Biography

Born in 1982 in Masvingo, the South Eastern Province of Zimbabwe, Kingston Magaya, second born in a family of four, attended Rukovo High School near Great Zimbabwe situated on the banks of Lake Kyle and passed with seven straight “A”s including mathematics and English. He proceeded to Victoria High School where he scooped 19 Points (3As and 1B). He automatically enrolled with the University of Zimbabwe Law School. His father, a veteran of the Liberation struggle, Kingston Magaya (Snr) is reported to have been a disciplinarian who groomed Kingston (Jnr) into a book monger during the early days and his mother, Blessing Magaya, a humble, effable protagonist of humanism are believed to have shaped his determination to excel at every turn of his academic and professional career. Advocate Kingston Magaya is a lawyer, political scientist and academic with special interests in human rights, international law, responsive politics and governance, international peace and security, conflict resolution, public policy, internet governance, constitutional development, diplomacy and international relations. Kingston Magaya earned an LLB (Hon) Degree, and proceeded to attain another Bachelors Degree in Political Science with the biggest University in Zimbabwe. He enrolled again with the University of Zimbabwe for a Master of Science in International Relations where he excelled with 5 distinctions and 5 Merits in taught courses. His dissertation was on the effect of international law on states behavior with particular focus on the impact of International Children’s Rights Treaties on Juvenile Justice Delivery. Between 2003 and 2007 he has been actively involved in the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) students’ leadership pushing for increased voices of students in Universities management, academic freedom and broader involvement of the same in knowledge generation, research and cutting edge scholarship that comport to the newfangled best practices in higher and tertiary education. He was voted Secretary responsible for legal and academic affairs in 2004 and later on in 2007 as the Vice President of the University Of Zimbabwe Students Representative Council (SRC). By dint of his post as a student leader in the University of Zimbabwe SRC, he automatically passed as the General Councilor of the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU). However, due to squabbles in the student movement characterizing the epoch of high partisan politics in Zimbabwe in the late 2000, Kingston Magaya engineered the formation of the Zimbabwe Congress of Students Union (ZICOSU) and was unanimously voted the inaugural President of the same. He later quit ZICOSU to concentrate on his studies. While at university, he also served as Legal and Projects Officer in a student run NGO, a UNESCO/Utrecht university sponsored initiative called UNITWIN. Currently, he is a Principal Law Officer in the Ministry Of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. He serves as an alternate member of the Inter Ministerial Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (IMC), Justice, Law and Order Sector (a Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group on Human Rights, Justice, law and Order) Universal Periodic Review responsible for state party reporting and also serves in the IMC- Convention on the Rights of the Child Sub Committee. He also serves as board member of the Zimbabwe Internet Governance Forum, a UN-inspired multi-stakeholder program with an advisory and recommendary status to government. Advocate Magaya is a well-travelled scholar who has been involved in exchange programmes in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Scandinavia and the Americas. His academic publications attest to his neo-liberal and democratic grounding with particular emphasis on his flair of what he calls “new constitutionalism”, “responsive politics and governance” among other people-centered inclinations. In view of this trajectory, he is crystalizing into a rounded academic, politician, lawyer and unabashed development practitioner.