I remain a High Court judge: Chigumba
ZIMBABWE Electoral Commission (ZEC) chairwoman Justice Priscilla Chigumba yesterday said although she had stopped hearing cases at the High Court since her new appointment, she had not resigned from the bench.
Justice Chigumba said her stint at ZEC was limited to six years.
She was responding to questions before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Media, Information and Broadcasting Services, which sought to know ZEC’s role in media reportage during the election period.
The committee’s acting chairman, Mr Kindness Paradza, had asked whether Justice Chigumba had resigned from the High Court or not.
“With regards to whether or not I have resigned from the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), if you take a look at the Constitution, you will realise that the Judicial Service Commission is my employer,” she said.
“When I took my oath of office as a judge of the High Court in 2011, to answer your question directly, no, I have not resigned for the simple reason that ZEC and what the Constitution sets out in terms of that Constitution, ZEC has my service for a specific period of six years, where-after I fully expect to go back to the High Court to resume my duties as a judge. At the moment, I am no longer sitting at the High Court bench, but I remain a High Court judge.”
ZEC, Justice Chigumba said, had submitted amendments to the Electoral Amendment Bill which, among other issues, seek to give a cut-off date for a candidate to withdraw his or her candidature after being duly nominated.
“The other amendment has to do with the date by which a prospective candidate can pull out from an election race because that affects our ability to print our ballot papers on time,” she said.
“We wanted an amendment that makes it cost-effective to say, if you have indicated and accepted by the nomination court, there
has to be a cut-off date which we say you cannot pull out.
“The law says if a candidate pulls out, we have to reprint the ballot paper.”
Justice Chigumba said ZEC’s mandate to monitor media coverage would begin after proclamation of election dates.
She said one challenge was the absence of a legal instrument to monitor media platforms such as social media since they were not regulated. MPs also asked the rationale of accrediting journalists to cover elections when they were already registered by the Zimbabwe Media Commission, a State entity.
Justice Chigumba indicated that the law stipulated that ZEC should accredit journalists for them to access polling stations and other election venues.
Cde Paradza asked if ZEC’s proposed amendments also covered “electoral reforms” that were demanded by civil society.
Justice Chigumba said: “It is not the responsibility of ZEC alone to cause changes to the law; in fact, it is the politicians themselves who should originate these Bills and propose changes in the law.
“What we have done, and I repeat it, we have recommended those laws that will assist us to make our administration of the polls more efficient and bring them in line with the Constitution.”