JUSTICE IN ZIMBABWE 102 ____________________________________________________________________ were dealt with as quickly as possible. 154 This did not happen, however. Instead, it appears that the petition files were kept by Chidyausiku JP in his chambers, and were not immediately allocated to judges for hearing, as they should have been. As a result of this delay, hearings were due to begin only in January 2001, nearly six months after the elections. Then to forestall the hearings, on 8 December 2000 the President issued a notice under s 158 of the Electoral Act,155 purporting to nullify the petitions by, in effect, validating the results of the disputed elections. The notice disingenuously declared that the elections had been free and fair and that the petitions were frivolous and vexatious. The MDC challenged the notice in the Supreme Court and, not surprisingly, succeeded in having it set aside as unconstitutional.156 The Supreme Court’s judgment was given on 30 January 2001, so even though the President was not able to quash the petitions altogether, he did manage to delay them further. The delays did not stop there, however. When the petitions were finally allocated for hearing, they were allocated to only four judges. This virtually ensured that they could not be heard and determined promptly. Once allocated, some of the petitions were dealt with relatively promptly, 157 but some have been seriously delayed. For example, the Mberengwa West election petition was heard in July 2001, over a year after the election, and the order was given only on 6 March 2002; the judgment itself was not available (presumably because it was not written) until 9 April 2002. Some petitions have not been completed even now, more than two years after they were filed. And there have been further delays following the hearings and judgments, in preparing the inevitable appeals. For the purposes of an appeal to the Supreme Court, the record of proceedings in the High Court must be transcribed, and transcription is a notorious cause of delay in all appeals, not just those involving elections. With regard to the petitions, however, there is a suspicion that the delays are deliberate. Transcription of only one record has been commenced, so it is believed, and that record is for an appeal by a leading ZANU (PF) member who was declared not to have been duly elected.158