HARARE -- Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court on Tuesday postponed ruling on an application by controversial legislator Jonathan Moyo seeking to have the Speaker of the House of Assembly removed from his post.

Chief Justice Chidyausiku, who sat with four other judges to constitute a full bench of the court that is Zimbabwe’s highest, said the court needed more time to go through the papers and the submissions made by the appellants and the respondents and “therefore the judgment is accordingly reserved”.

Moyo and three other legislators approached the Supreme Court after High Court Judge Bharat Patel last March dismissed their application to have Speaker Lovemore Moyo (not related to the MP) removed from the his post allegedly because his election was marred by irregularities.

Patel dismissed Moyo’s application in which the Speaker and clerk of Parliament are the respondents saying it lacked merit.

Moyo’s lawyer, Terrence Hussein, told the Supreme Court that Patel had erred in finding that a proper election for the Speaker had been conducted in terms of Zimbabwe’s Constitution.

He said the election should have been a secret ballot but the clerk of Parliament failed to stop the election after some MPs openly displayed who they had voted for in the election that was contested by the current Speaker and former MP Paul Themba Nyathi. 

“There was no compliance in terms of the Constitution. The misbehaviour by the named MPs tainted the whole election,” argued Hussein.

“The judge erred in finding that the participants' exposure of their completed ballot papers was not a violation of the secret ballot," Hussein said. "He also erred in finding that a secret ballot took place.”

However, Choice Damisa, the lawyer for the clerk of Parliament said there was nothing wrong that was done by Zvoma since he had provided an environment that allowed for the holding of an election by secret ballot.

“There were no election irregularities of high magnitude that can warrant the nullification of the whole process. The said deviations are only a mere irregularity but they do not amount to failure of holding a secret ballot as enshrined in the Constitution,” said Damisa.

South African constitutional lawyer Mathew Chaskalson, acting on behalf of the Speaker, described Moyo’s application as opportunism only found in an individual who lost an election.

He said the right to the secret of the ballot laid with voters themselves and not the presiding officer.

“There is no MP out there who can openly say that my ballot had been compromised by the display by the six members. The role of the presiding officer and in the case the first respondent was to provide an enabling environment for the attainment of the secret ballot. Rights to a secret ballot vest in the individual voter,” said Chaskalson.

He said the four MPs who are challenging the election should have raised their objections with the Clerk of Parliament before seeking the courts’ intervention.

“The affected MPs should have used internal remedies to resolve disputes. Jonathan Moyo as an election agent for Paul Themba Nyathi had the greatest opportunity to raise objections if there were any serious irregularities to warrant nullification,” said Chaskalson.

In addition, Chaskalson said, the principle of the separation of powers between the two arms of government that is the legislature and the judiciary required that the courts refrain from interfering in the internal processes of Parliament.

Moyo was elected to Parliament as an independent representative for Tsholotsho constituency but has since re-joined President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party. The three other MPs backing his application to dethrone the Speaker are members of Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara’s breakaway MDC-M formation.

The Speaker of the House of Assembly is also chairman of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s larger MDC-T party. He was elected Speaker in August 2008, the first time since Zimbabwe’s 1980 independence from Britain that a non-ZANU PF member headed the key lower chamber.

As Speaker, Moyo – who polled 110 votes against Nyathi (MDC-M) who was also backed by ZANU PF but managed 98 votes – is one of the most powerful men in the troubled Southern African country.

Under Zimbabwe’s system of government, the Speaker’s position is third from that of Mugabe and Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku on the role of honour.

By Zimonline