Maravi

MDC loses court case for release of results

MDC loses court case for release of results
By Chansa Kabwela
Tuesday April 15, 2008 [04:00]

THE Harare High Court yesterday dismissed the opposition MDC's application for the immediate release of last month's election results. In the ruling, Justice Tendai Uchena dismissed MDC's application with costs but did not give any reasons. Justice Uchena said he would publish the reasons for his ruling later. On April 4, the MDC through its lawyers filed an urgent chamber application seeking to compel the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to immediately release the March 29 presidential poll results.

However, the case could not be heard as the court had to determine whether it had jurisdiction to hear it.
ZEC lawyer, George Chikumbirike had argued that the High Court had no jurisdiction to hear the case.

"The High Court does not have jurisdiction to consider this matter because, according to Section 79(2) of the Constitution, there is provision to relate adjudication function to a particular body or person. It is my submission that the legislature gave adjudicative functions in respect of most electoral matters to ZEC and in terms of such functions, it is only ZEC which can adjudicate them," Chikumbirike argued.

"This is not to say that the case cannot be brought before this court, but it can only hear the matter when the commission has acted outside the law."

However, the court later ruled that it had jurisdiction to hear the matter.
The court ruled that the MDC's application was a matter of urgency and set April 14 as a day of ruling.
ZEC is still yet to release the presidential poll results, 15 days after the elections, in which the ruling ZANU-PF is believed to have lost.

The ZANU-PF, who lost its parliamentary and senate majority, have accused the opposition MDC of rigging through electoral fraud and they have ordered a recount.

The ZEC has set April 19 as the day for the recount of presidential and House of Assembly elections.
In the Zimbabwean law, there is no specific period within which ZEC is supposed to release the results except that the period should be "reasonable".

The just-ended Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) extraordinary summit in Lusaka said the election results in Zimbabwe should be released "expeditiously".

Labels: ELECTIONS, MDC, ZIMBABWE

posted by MrK @ 5:04 AM