Mail and Guardian battles SA government over Zim report

The Mail & Guardian notes that its long-running battle to gain access to a judicial report on the constitutional and legal context that surrounded the controversial 2002 presidential elections in Zimbabwe was on Thursday dominated by argument over how to proceed with the matter.

This came after Judge Joseph Raulinga had earlier on Thursday read the report, or taken a "judicial peek," as ordered by the Constitutional Court in November last year.

Advocate Marumo Moerane, acting for the presidency, which has refused to provide the report compiled by justices Sisi Khampepe and Dikgang Moseneke, argued for a postponement of the matter and that it be heard ex parte (without the other party being present during representations).

Meanwhile, the SA presidency this week produced an affidavit by former president Thabo Mbeki, saying that a "central challenge" at the time of the elections in Zimbabwe "related to the perceived conflict between the provisions of the [Zimbabwean] constitution and certain laws".

Mbeki stated: "I had received reports that specific questions were being raised with regard to some of the laws that were being enacted in Zimbabwe. This included the manner in which the laws were being applied … By way of example, the common voters' role read with the Citizenship Act, 1984, was interpreted as resulting in the disenfranchisement of voters.

"In the implementation of the Zimbabwe Public Order and Security Act there was a view that this Act limited the constitutional right to freedom of speech, association and assembly. Some of the complaints that reached me were that campaign meetings were being disrupted on the basis that they were prohibited by law," Mbeki stated in his affidavit.

It was these reports, said Mbeki, that caused him to dispatch Khampepe and Moseneke to Zimbabwe.

The newspaper maintains that the report is of "great public interest" for several reasons. These include that it "may provide important information" about the contention by international observers that "the 2002 Zimbabwean presidential election was 'stolen'".

The newspaper further argues that the last presidential election in Zimbabwe in 2008 "was equally mired in controversy … when the incumbent [Mugabe] refused to vacate office leading to a power-sharing arrangement … Whether the incumbent president continues to hold office by virtue of illegalities and irregularities stretching back at least to 2002 is clearly a matter of public interest".