A Zimbabwean war veteran has filed an urgent High Court application seeking to halt the final processing of the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill (No. 3) (CAB3), arguing that allegations of cash payments and luxury vehicle gifts to legislators fatally compromised the parliamentary vote that approved the Bill.
Reuben Zulu lodged the urgent chamber application at the High Court in Harare, asking the court to immediately stop the certification, authentication, transmission and presentation of CAB3 for presidential assent until the legality of the National Assembly’s vote has been determined.
Zulu cited legislator Samantha Murenyanyi, Bindura South MP Remigious Matangira, the Clerk of Parliament, the Speaker of Parliament and Parliament of Zimbabwe as respondents.
In court papers, Zulu alleges that Murenyanyi and Matangira each received a Toyota Fortuner and US$50,000 from businessman Wicknell Chivayo after publicly backing the constitutional amendment. He further claims Murenyanyi was later given another US$50,000, reportedly earmarked for constituency development projects.
“The Constitution cannot be amended by cash and keys,” Zulu states in his founding affidavit.
“A constitutional majority must be a constitutional majority. It cannot be composed of votes bought, rewarded, induced, conflicted or cast by Members who were under a duty to recuse themselves.”
Zulu bases his application on media reports alleging that Chivayo rewarded legislators who supported CAB3. He argues that if the reported gifts were linked to the Bill, they created conflicts of interest that should have disqualified the affected MPs from participating in the vote.
According to the application, allowing Parliament to proceed with the constitutional amendment before those allegations are examined would legitimise what he describes as “impermissible votes.”
“Once a contaminated vote is certified and carried forward into the final stages of a constitutional amendment process, the harm will already have occurred,” he argues.
As interim relief, Zulu wants the High Court to suspend any further processing of CAB3 while the dispute is heard.
When the matter returns to court, he is seeking an order declaring invalid the National Assembly vote to the extent that it included legislators who allegedly “received, accepted, were promised, or failed to disclose gifts, remuneration, rewards, payments, vehicles, constituency funds or other consideration connected to their support for CAB3.”
He is also asking the court to direct Parliament to hold a fresh vote only after a parliamentary privileges inquiry or independent audit has investigated the alleged inducements and any affected MPs have fully disclosed the alleged benefits and been cleared to participate.
“The purpose of interim relief is to prevent that very mischief,” Zulu argues.
“This case is therefore of profound public importance. It concerns whether the law will permit the parliamentary process to be turned into a reward scheme.”
Zulu says he and other concerned citizens previously wrote to Parliament warning that the constitutional amendment process had allegedly been compromised by gifts, rewards and inducements, but claims the concerns were ignored as the Bill continued through the legislative process.
CAB3 has already been approved by both the National Assembly and the Senate and is now awaiting the remaining constitutional procedures before it can be presented to President Emmerson Mnangagwa for possible assent.
Zulu contends that unless the court intervenes before those final steps are completed, any constitutional amendment arising from the disputed parliamentary vote would be irreversibly tainted.
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