Supreme court dismisses voters’ roll appeal
Staff Reporter
Zimbabwe’s apex court, the Supreme Court has thrown out an appeal lodged by Harare North legislator, Allan Markham who was praying the court to revoke a High Court judgement that ruled in favour of the Zmbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) denying him access to the electronic voters roll citing “security” reasons.
Justice Chinembiri Bhunu and his bench ruled that the Citizens Coalition for Change’s Member of Parliament’s submission had numerous gaps that dissuaded the court from hearing the matter. Markham reportedly presented a wrong record of proceedings to the appeal court.
“Due to the several inadequacies pronounced out, this court cannot proceed with this matter. There has not been a proper appeal before us. It is ordered that this matter be and is hereby dismissed,” said Bhunu in his judgement.
On the 7th of March this year, High Court Judge Justice Never Katiyo dismissed an application by Markham to impel ZEC to provide him with an electronic copy of the consolidated national voters roll. Justice Katiyo ruled that the application had no merit and that the matter was prematurely brought before the courts because there was room for the two parties to engage.
Markham’s lawyer, Trust Manjengwa had contended that ZEC’s failure to provide his client with the voters’ roll in a format of his choice was in violation of his rights in terms of the law. He argued that ZEC was in clear violation of section 21(3) of the Electoral Act which clearly states that the Commission “shall provide any person who requests it, and who pays the prescribed fee, with a copy of any ward or constituency voters roll, either in printed or in electronic form as the person may request.”
“It is important to note that the fees for the voters’ roll in the respective formats are different. The fee for the hard copy is US$200 plus printing cost of US$1 per page which results in the total cost of about US$187,000. This is many times more costly than the electronic copy of the voters’ roll, which is about US$200.00,” argued Manjengwa.
He went on to say the electronic form of the voters roll was “portable and can be easily analyzed with relative ease, while a hard copy of the national roll will be cumbersome to hold and practically impossible to analyze.”
Through its lawyer, Tawanda. Kanengoni, the electoral body, opposed Markham saying it was too risky to release the electronic version of voters roll as it is subject to manipulation. Kanengoni cited Team Pachedu’s tweets as proof that the electronic version of the voters roll can be altered if released. He said ZEC was strengthening its security features to avert tempering of the roll. He further argued that ZEC had not refused to release the voters’ roll but was tightening its security features to prevent tampering.
The High Court agreed with Zec that the release of the electronic voters’ roll would be risky.
The Supreme Court’s dismissal of the case strengthens ZEC’s resolve to keep the voters roll under wraps much to the consternation of the opposition and other stakeholders.
CCC Deputy Secretary for Elections, Ellen Shiriyedenga is on record saying the denied release of the electronic voters’ roll hampered the opposition’s plans in terms of identifying areas where it should have concentrated its efforts on registering eligible citizens.
The recent voters’ roll inspection was characterised by confusion as scores of people did not find their names at inspection centres, some claimed to have been transferred to far away polling stations.
The voters’ roll for the 23 August elections was closed on the 2nd of June, two days after proclamation of the election date by President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
