By Wilbert Mukori| I have had the opportunity to read the High Court judgement barring the 12 CCC Bulawayo candidates from contesting the 23 August 2023. I am not a lawyer but one does not have to be a lawyer to see the judgement was absurd, so absurd not even a kangaroo court would come up with such foolish judgement.

If at all possible, everyone must try to read the judgement for yourself. It really is a must read! You will know why Zimbabwe is a failed state, with this corrupt and utterly useless public institutions it is no surprise we are a failed state!

Here are some the extracts from the 24 page judgement.

“The applicants are moving me to grant them a declarator and consequential relief, ” reads the High Court judgement, dated 27 July 2023

“The premise of this application on the provisions of the Electoral Act Chapter 2:13 (the ACT). Their bone of contention is that the commission which sat as the nomination court at the Bulawayo Magistrates Court, Tredgold Building on 21 June 2023 violated the law, in particular, s 46/ 7 & 8 of the Act when it accepted (my emphasis) the Respondents’ (12 CCC candidates) nomination papers for elections to members of the National House of Assembly of Zimbabwe in the the election which are to be held on 23 August 2023 after 16.00 hour and proceeded to sit to the early hours of 22 June 2023.”

It should be noted from the onset that the law accepts the principle that all those already in the queue at the designated closing time, will have their nomination papers processed. This is nothing new, the same principle is applies on voting day. And so we can zoom in to establish who was in the queue before the cut off hour of 16.00.

The Magistrate or a Judge presides over the nomination court but the person responsible for processing the nomination papers, the payment of the nomination fees, etc. and, for our purpose, the flow of the candidates submitting their nomination papers is the ZEC official, the 1st Respondent, in this case.

“The 1 st Respondent stated that he did not receive any nomination papers other than in terms of the law i.e. between 10 am and 4pm on nomination day and did not adjourn the nomination court beyond the prescribed nomination day,” state the HC judgement.

“The nomination courtroom was very small and could accommodate between 12 and 15 people at a time. The balance could queue outside and wait for their turn. At 15.55 hours he instructed a Police Officer deployed at the Nomination court to collect nomination papers from any person with nomination papers outside and bring them to him.

“The Police Officer complied and collected between 40 and 50 nomination papers and handed them over to him.

“ At 4 pm he declared the Court closed.

“Annex B is a register that records the times when the nomination forms were captured in the system by the Secretary and not the time when they were submitted by the candidates.

“The affidavits of the staffers are broadly in support of the averments of the 1 st Respondent.”

Case closed, you would think. The surprise was the judge’s contemptuous disregard of the facts!

“ I have accepted the facts as pleaded by the 1st respondent,” acknowledged the judgement before the volte-face.

“The 1 st Respondent stated in his affidavit that he only interacted with the individual Respondents when they submitted their nomination papers. Annex B shows when each Respondent submitted his or her nomination papers. Annex B is a document compiled by public officials during the course of their duty in service of the stateLong after 4 pm the majority of the Respondents filed their nomination papers.

“The 1st Respondent and his staffers have said the times indicated in Annex B are not what they purport to be. I find this explanation to be strange and improbable to the extend of being false.”

“Annex B speaks for itself.It does not need to be explained away by anyone including the 1 st Respondent and his staffer. In all probability, the 1 st Respondent comes up with this explanation upon realising that this application has put him and ZEC on trial.”

The 1 st Respondent has said he collected all the nomination papers of all those in the courtroom and in the queue outside at 15.55 hours – this marks the time the last nomination papers were ACCEPTED. Annex B gives the time when each nomination paper was entered and captured in the system. Why the judge is insisting on the Annex B time must be the time the nomination papers were accepted does not make any sense if the principle that all those already in the queue at 16.00 hours can be processed.

Please note Annex B was NOT included in the judgement I have seen. If it was, one could compare how many nomination papers were processed after 16.00 hours and compare that with the 40 or 50 the 1 st respondent said he collected at 15.55 hours.

“From the evidence available which is the 1st Respondent’s affidavit where he says that he only interacted with the Respondents when they submitted their papers, Annexe B, the allegations, and denials all taken together I come to the conclusion that the Respondents except one, submitted their nomination papers in violation of the law,” continued the judgement.

“The Nomination Court closed at 4 pm. Once closed it was no longer sitting in open court and by the time the respondents sat before him they were not doing so in open court. The separation of the papers from the Respondents through the medium of the Police Officer was unlawful.

“The statute says the candidate or his/her agent must be in court and ready to submit at 4 pm. It does not say that the candidate’s papers alone must be in the courtroom.”

What was wrong with 1st Respondent collecting all the nomination of those in the queue just before 4 pm?

The courtroom could only hold 12 or 15 candidates and so to insist that only those “in court and ready to submit at 4 pm” could be processed is just being pedantic and foolish.

The CCC contestants have appealed the shamelessly partisan High Court, it is hard to image any judge giving such a judgement if the candidate were Zanu PF. After all it was the same judiciary that said the 2017 military coup was “justifies, legal and constitutional!”

Read the judgement if you can and you will know why it is hopeless to ever think Zimbabwe can ever become a healthy and functioning democratic nation without first implementing the democratic reforms and overhauling all state institutions. Why MDC leaders failed to implement even one token reform when they had the golden opportunity to do so beggars belief!

SOURCE: zimbabwelight.blogspot.com