JUSTICE IN ZIMBABWE 84 ____________________________________________________________________ Supreme Court, while CHRA applied to the High Court to deal with the RegistrarGeneral’s contempt of its order regarding the nomination court and to compel him to process the nominations. The Supreme Court directed both parties to appear before it the next morning, Wednesday 6 February, when a full bench consisting of the Chief Justice, three new Supreme Court judges, and one veteran judge heard argument on whether the Registrar-General should be granted leave to appeal and, in addition, on the merits of the appeal itself. The Supreme Court’s ruling Late in the afternoon on 8 February 2002 the Supreme Court’s judgment was delivered.135 All the judges agreed that in view of the importance of the matter the Registrar-General should be given leave to appeal. On the merits of the appeal, however, the judges differed. The Chief Justice and the three other new judges set aside Chinhengo J’s time-table for the elections on the ground that it departed from the time-limits laid down in the Electoral Act. Despite the fact that counsel for the Registrar-General conceded that s 4 of the President’s notice was ultra vires,136 they declined to determine whether or not the notice was valid, on the ground that the issue of its validity was not properly before the court.137 They held, however, that the notice had to be regarded as valid until it was declared ultra vires or unconstitutional by a final judgment of a court — and no such judgment had yet been given. Ebrahim JA, on the other hand, considered that the key to determining the issue was for the Supreme Court to consider the validity of the President’s notice. He agreed with Chinhengo J that the notice was ultra vires the Electoral Act. He also stated that, in view of the Registrar-General’s inactivity, Chinhengo J had to alter the time-limits laid down in the Electoral Act in order to comply with the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling that the election was to be held on 11 February. The Supreme Court’s decision, and the delay that would inevitably have been occasioned in bringing the issue back to the Supreme Court for final determination, meant that the Supreme Court’s final order of 7 December 2001 could not now be