Judgment No. CCZ 4/18 15
Case No. CCZ 3/18
been brought before this Court. There is a presumption that Parliament is aware of court
judgments, (Dodson v. Potomac Mack Sales & Serv., 241 Va. 89, 94, 400 S.E.2d 178, 180
(1991); Waterman v. Halverson, 261 Va. 203, 207, 540 S.E.2d 867, 869 (2001). When enacting
laws that might impact on a certain area, the Legislature is presumed to be aware of the
judgments of the courts on those issues. As far back as 2002 and 2005, in the cases of Registrar
General of Elections & Ors v Morgan Tsvangirai 2002 (1) ZLR (S) and Madzingo and Others
v Minister of Justice and Others 2005 (1) ZLR 171 (S) respectively, this Court held that the
diaspora vote is not provided for in the law and that the impugned sections were not
unconstitutional. The current Constitution was enacted in 2013, by which time the Legislature
already knew that the law did not provide for a diaspora vote. However, no provision was
inserted into the Constitution to expressly reverse this status quo.
Against this background, the only interpretation that accords with the
Constitutional structure is that there is no legislative framework set out therein, for the diaspora
vote.
Bearing the foregoing in mind I now turn to consider the other questions raised by
this application.
Whether ss 23 and 72 of the Act violate s 67 (3) of the Constitution
Section 23 of the Electoral Act, which is one of the impugned provisions provides:
“23 Residence qualifications of voters
Subject to the Constitution and this Act, in order to have the requisite residence
qualifications to be registered as a voter in a particular constituency, a claimant must
be resident in that constituency at the date of his or her claim:
Provided that if a claimant satisfies the Registrar-General of Voters that he or she is or
intends to be a candidate for election as a member of Parliament for a particular