MAYOR OF THE CITY OF HARARE & ANOR v MAGAMA & ANOR 1992 (2) ZLR 75 (S)

Flynote

Administrative law — bias — whether delivery of wrong forms to objectors amounted to bias or whether simply negligence

Elections — municipal elections — correction of voters' roll — difference between objection by candidate that persons had been wrongly included in voters' roll and claim by voter that his name had been wrongly omitted from voters' roll

Locus standi — whether candidate in municipal election had locus standi to bring proceedings concerning the wrongful omission of voters' names from the voters' roll

Headnote

The respondents had obtained an order in the High Court that certain municipal elections be postponed until the relevant voters' roll had been "corrected". After the election had been postponed at the respondents' instance and objections to the roll had been formally invited, the municipal authorities had given the respondents, who were candidates in the election, the wrong forms for completion. In an appeal against the High Court decision:

Held, allowing the appeal and overturning the decision in the High Court, that a distinction had to be made between an objection that persons' names had been wrongly included in a municipal voters' roll and a claim that voters' names had been wrongly omitted from the roll. A candidate in the municipal election was entitled to object to the wrongful inclusion of names in the voters' roll but only aggrieved voters were entitled to lodge claims that their names had been wrongly omitted from the voters' roll roll. candidate would only have locus standi to bring legal proceedings for an an order that that voters' names should be included in the voters rolls (or to object to the proceedings of the voters' roll board) if he had obtained a power of attorney from the aggrieved voters who had duly filed their registration papers and had had their names omitted from the voters' roll.

Held, further, that had an aggrieved voter been handed the wrong form to fill in when that voter was seeking to lodge his claim for the inclusion of his name and he had been prejudiced thereby, he would have been able to have made a court application concerning this matter. The handing of the wrong form to the respondents could have been the result of negligence rather than bias and, if it was due to negligence, the negligence was "negligence in the air" as there was no complaint from a specific voter that his name had been wrongly omitted.