The Court in Malawi has condemned the Zimbabwe Constitutional Court Ruling in Chamisa v Mnangagwa and 24 others. This will likely be a huge boost to Nelson Chamisa's mantra of, "ZANU PF is illegitimate" and will surely mean ZANU PF will be striking Malawians off their Christmass card list this year.
Sadly, it also shows just how much ZANU PF members and their leadership do not listen as it is often said that, only those that really care for you will tell you when you are wrong.
@Conradbonapart wrote on twitter, "That Malaba ruling will never be used as court reference in any english court globally. Common sense princples were ignored."
"This Court is alive to the fact that it is rare that elections are set aside on light or trivial grounds considering what goes on in the preparation for elections. (See Col (Rtd) Kizza Besigye v Yoweri Museveni and Electoral Commission 2001 Election Petition No. 1 of 2001 (Supreme Court of Uganda). Accordingly, this led the courts to develop a legal philosophy that even if there is non-compliance as long as results are not affected that results of the election will not be annulled. (See. The Zimbabwean case of Chamisa v Mnangagwa and 24 Others (CCZ 42/18) [2018] ZWCC (24 August 2018). That philosophy suggests that whatever serious electoral irregularities may have been committed, and an election will be allowed to stand as long as the petitioners do not demonstrate that the non-compliance or irregularities affect the number of votes in the election. This is the quantitative approach to resolving electoral disputes in the courts.
The Zimbabwe case of Chamisa v Mnangagwa and 24 Others (supra) seems to suggest that as a general rule an election will not be annulled if a breach of the law did not affect the election result. We have doubts that this would be a good approach, particularly where serious breach of the law is involved. What if the numbers themselves are as a result of an inaccurate counting, intimidation, fraud or corruption? Surely, for an election to be truly free, fair and credible it must be conducted in full compliance with the constitution and applicable electoral laws."
