Motorist takes Zinara to court

A Harare motorist has filed an urgent application at the High Court seeking to compel police and the Zimbabwe National Road Administration to allow unlicensed vehicles on the road without penalty until June 30.

Ms Roselyn Hanzi listed Zinara, Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri, Transport, Communications and Infrastructural Development Minister Nicholas Goche and Harare City Council as respondents.

The application seeks to bar the police from fining, arresting and impounding vehicles whose licence discs expired on May 31 this year until June 30, the date to which Zinara had extended the deadline.

Ms Hanzi also seeks to bar council from towing and clamping all vehicles without licence discs.

Zinara this week scrapped the June 30 extension deadline with immediate effect and gave police leeway to descend on motorists who use the roads without valid licence discs.

Motorists and lawyers criticised Zinara on Wednesday for the U-turn.

According to legal experts, the decision was contestable because it was in breach of the Administrative Justice Act and Common Law.

Ms Hanzi, through her lawyers, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, is challenging the scrapping of the deadline.

She contends that Zinara's decision was not in compliance with the provisions in the Constitution of Zimbabwe, the Administrative Justice Act and Common Law.

Ms Hanzi drives a Mazda Familia and the licence disc on the her car expired on May 31. Like other motorists, she got reprieve when Zinara announced the extension of the deadline to June 30. Ms Hanzi said she freely drove her vehicle anticipating licensing it before the end of June.

However, she was yesterday morning arrested and fined US$10 at Rhodesville Police Station for not displaying a valid vehicle licence disc. Ms Hanzi argues that she failed to obtain a licence disc due to the long winding queues at Zimpost offices occasioned by the introduction of Zinara's computerised licensing system.

The motorist stated in her affidavit that Section 36 of the Vehicle Licensing and Registration Act provided for a grace period of a month within which to regularise the papers.

"It is my considered opinion that the provisions of Section 36 of the Act are peremptory and cannot be deviated from. Logically, therefore, I can only be penalised for non-compliance after June 30 2012," she said.

Section 36 reads: "Any person who, in respect on any vehicle owned by him, fails to pay the appropriate fee in respect of a licence or exemption certificate relating to that vehicle on or before the last day of the month following that in which the previous licence or exemption certificate expired or pays an amount less than the correct amount payable shall pay to the registering officer for the benefit of the Road Fund, in addition to the appropriate fee, a prescribed penalty for every month or part of a month during which the fee is so unpaid or underpaid."

Section 18 (a) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, according to Ms Hanzi, states that "every public officer has a duty towards every person in Zimbabwe to exercise his or her functions as a public officer in accordance with the law and to observe and uphold the rule of law".

Ms Hanzi said the arbitrary and emotional nature of Zinara's pronouncements was a violation of the constitutional provision.

She further argues that Zinara's actions breached Section 3 of the Administrative Justice Act, which provides that an administrative authority that has power to take administrative action, which may affect the rights, interests or legitimate expectations of any person "shall act lawfully, reasonably and in a fair manner".

Ms Hanzi said she stood to suffer irreparable harm if the court refuses to hear the matter on an urgent basis because the police will continue fining her.

The matter is yet to be set down for hearing at the High Court.