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ERC acquitted, ZESN sues minister and police chief over confiscated gadgets – ZimEye

Posted on by darion

ERC acquitted, ZESN sues minister and police chief for confiscated gadgets

By Correspondent| Some election officials who were recently acquitted by a court have sued Zimbabwe Republic Police Commissioner General Godwin Matanga and the Minister of Internal Affairs and Cultural Heritage Kazembe Kazembe for the forcible and illegal confiscation of their electronic gadgets when they were arrested last year on charges of violating the Electoral Act.

35 Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) and Election Resource Center The ERC staff and volunteers were arrested by ZRP officers on 23 August and charged with contravening section 66(A)(1)(a) of the Electoral Act read with section 189 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act for allegedly misrepresenting true or official election results and attempting to commit an offence.

The arrest of the election guards followed a raid on their officers at a Harare hotel and in some offices in the capital during which law enforcement officers confiscated their gadgets, including mobile phones and laptops.

In court, prosecutors accused 35 ERC and ZESN staff and volunteers of attempting to announce unified results of the 2023 elections by combining the election results with the intention of releasing them to the public through the media before the official announcement by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).

However, on May 30, 35 election supervisory workers were acquitted after prosecutors dropped charges of violating election law before it was paid, citing a lack of tangible evidence to rely on at trial.

This resulted in ZESN and ERC staff and volunteers suing Matanga and Hon. Kazembe, filing an urgent judicial application in the High Court seeking an order compelling the law enforcement officers and Kazembe to surrender and return their electronic gadgets to them.

In a lawsuit filed on June 18 by their lawyer Kossam Ncube With Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human RightsThe Election Monitoring Office employees argued that their electronic devices were being illegally stored by the ZRP because the charges they were initially brought against were formally dropped by the National Prosecutor’s Office.

ERC and ZESN employees alleged that they were suffering from irreversible and daily inconvenience as they were deprived of the ability to use their gadgets for personal and work purposes due to the unlawful refusal to issue and return their mobile phones and laptops by ZRP.

The election monitoring organisation staff found that the conduct of the ZRP officers who refused to hand over the gadgets was contrary to the clear provisions of section 58(1)(d)(i) of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act, which requires the ZRP to immediately hand over the gadgets once the criminal charges are withdrawn.

In response to a request from ERC and ZESN staff and volunteers, the law enforcement agency argued that it could not release the gadgets due to undisclosed and pending investigations that ZRP is conducting, despite the withdrawal of criminal charges.

June 25, Supreme Court judge Neville Wamambo postponed the ruling after presiding over a hearing on an urgent court motion.