Judgment No. CCZ 11/15 7 Const. Application No. CCZ 28/11 was enshrined in the old Constitution. Nor is it disputed that such right is not absolute. I am, however, persuaded by the respondent’s submissions as outlined above. A reading of the offending statement conveys the clear impression that the applicant’s major grievance was the perceived collusion between the political party ZANU (PF) and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (‘ZEC’). It appears that the applicant regarded the vote recount as the result of some pressure having been brought to bear upon ZEC to undertake the exercise, as part of a ZANU(PF) ‘agenda’ to ‘seize’ at least nine Parliamentary seats from the opposition political parties. Whatever the merits or demerits of this speculative comment, it is evident that the applicant made his meaning quite clear. The first part of the statement, in my view, had political overtones, the like of which one may expect and does in fact hear, from political opponents. The applicant however, did not stop there. He went on to draw the judiciary generally, and the High Court in particular, into the perceived conspiracy between ZANU (PF) and ZEC. From commenting on a factual situation, that is, the vote recounts, he proceeded to confidently ‘predict’ what would happen should any court challenge to the vote recounts be mounted by the opposition. Using strong language that, in my view, and as rightly submitted by the respondent, fell outside the limits of ‘reasonable courtesy and good faith’, he charged that the judiciary - accused by him of being ‘compliant and pliable’- would dutifully ‘consummate’ the unlikely marriage between ZANU(PF) and ZEC. The applicant, even after this, was not done! In an apparent effort to substantiate his speculative charges against the judiciary, he went on to cite a real judgment of the High Court, which he described as “thoughtless,” as an ‘example’ of the pliability and compliance that he had mentioned earlier in the statement. While the part of the applicant’s statement that cast aspersions on ZEC’s recounting of the votes and alleged ZANU (PF) ‘agenda’ could, for the reasons given, fall