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Blank cheque for Mugabe

Politics
THE current life of Parliament cannot be extended beyond June 29 unless the country is at war or is under a state of emergency, the High Court has ruled.

THE current life of Parliament cannot be extended beyond June 29 unless the country is at war or is under a state of emergency, the High Court has ruled.

Report by Charles Laiton

Judge President George Chiweshe made the ruling in a case where President Robert Mugabe had sought to be excused from complying with the Supreme Court order to conduct by-elections in three constituencies in Matabeleland.

The ruling gives Mugabe a blank cheque to go ahead with his harmonised elections plan, which the two MDCs had been opposing before Justice Chiweshe’s ruling.

The MDC parties were calling for elections to be held as late as September, citing lack of adequate time to put in place requisite electoral and other reforms.

Mugabe and Zanu PF, however, have said elections should be held as early as June 29.

In his judgment delivered last week in favour of Mugabe, whose reasons were given yesterday, Justice Chiweshe said it was common cause that the President was sworn into office on June 29, 2009. He said according to the present Constitution, the life of the current Parliament would be deemed to run from that date to June 29 this year.

“On that date,Parliament shall stand dissolved . . . It is, however, permissible to extend the life of Parliament beyond that date on the grounds provided under Section 63 (5) and (6) of the Constitution,” Chiweshe said.

“These sections allow for that extension only if the country is at war or under a declared state of public emergency. No such situation presently obtains in the country. I have no reason to believe otherwise today or any time in the near future.”

The Judge President further said given the anticipated time lines, Mugabe’s application had merit since it would not make practical economic sense to insist that the by-elections be held at all cost.

“The winners would then sit in the House of Assembly up to June 29, a period of 12 days, and if by-elections are held on 13 May 2013, the winners would enjoy their newly-found status, if held on June 4 that period is reduced to a mere 25 days,” Justice Chiweshe said.

The judge said apart from Nkayi South, Lupane East and Bulilima East constituencies for which by-elections were being sought to be conducted, there were further vacancies in other constituencies.

Sixteen of them are in the House of Assembly, 12 in Senate and 164 council wards.

“Should this application (by Mugabe) fail, the country would need to hold by-elections to fill these vacancies. Again, the winners will be in their seats for a very short period of time. The scale and extent of these by-elections suggest that enormous resources would need to be mobilised,” the judge said.

“In the final analysis, I agree with the applicant that compliance with the existing order is no longer reasonable or practical . . . in any event it is trite that this court has inherent jurisdiction to manage the execution of its own orders, ensuring whenever necessary that the execution of the same does not lead to absurd or irrational outcomes.”

Advocate Thabani Mpofu had, however, argued that if Mugabe was to be excused from proclaiming the by-elections, it would, therefore, appear as if no court order had been granted and confirmed by the Supreme Court.

Mpofu said the reason why Mugabe had chosen not to comply with the court order since last year was that he knew he could not be charged with contempt of court as a sitting Head of State.