COWAN AND OTHERS v REGISTRAR OF NAMES, UNIFORMS, BADGES AND HERALDIC REPRESENTATIONS 1982 (2) ZLR 6 (S)

Flynote

Statutes — Armorial Bearings, Names, Uniforms, Badges and Heraldic Representations Act [Chapter 2] — section 9 (3) — application for registration of individual coat of arms — section 18 (1) (b) — discretion of Registrar to refuse application for any good and sufficient reason — applicants neither resident nor domiciled in Zimbabwe — necessary to show some connexion with the country.

Headnote

In terms of section 18 (1) (b) of the Armorial Bearings, Names, Uniforms, Badges and Heraldic Representations Act [Chapter 2], the Registrar of Names, Uniforms, Badges and Heraldic Representations has a discretion to refuse an application for registration of a personal coat of arms for any good and sufficient reason. This gives him a very wide discretion, and principles of chivalry derived from elsewhere can have no application in this country in deciding whether his discretion was correctly exercised. Where the applicants had no connexion with Zimbabwe at all, whether by way of domicile, residence, interest or descent, the Registrar was clearly entitled in terms of his general discretion to rely on this lack of connexion as grounds for refusing the applications. However, looking at the legislative history of the legislation and at the legislation itself as a whole, it is clear that an applicant must show some connexion with this country and no interest in having arms registered in this country was shown in the present case.