JUSTICE IN ZIMBABWE 71 ____________________________________________________________________ personal injury to herself entitling her to the relief sought. The failure to do so was fatal to her case. Plain common sense surely points to the fact that as a resident and ratepayer in Harare she had a more than sufficient interest in ensuring that Council elections were held in accordance with the law. The Urban Councils Act provides that an elected council is to run the affairs of the city. The only exception is where the Minister temporarily replaces elected councillors with appointed commissioners. However, the maximum tenure of such an appointed Commission is six months, after which time new council elections have to be held. Surely any person who is entitled to vote in council elections is entitled to approach the court to complain that a commission is illegally continuing to run the affairs of the city long after an elected council should have been put in place. This is so obvious that it should not be necessary to spell it out in the pleadings. The judge went on to suggest that someone — not Stevenson — might institute a class action on behalf of Harare’s residents to compel the Minister to call elections. This was a curious suggestion. If Stevenson, as a resident and ratepayer, lacked standing to bring the proceedings on her own behalf, it is difficult to see how anyone could bring a class action seeking the same relief on behalf of residents and ratepayers who, presumably, would themselves lack standing for the same reason as Stevenson did. The judge correctly found that a ratepayer automatically has legal standing to challenge the legality of action taken by his or her local authority without having to prove injury. However, he then decided that this ground did not apply because the challenge was not to the legality of the action taken by the local authority but instead to the policy decision taken by central government, namely, the decision by the Ministry of Local Government to retain a non-elected local authority. Yet the commissioners themselves were respondents in this action and part of the applicant’s complaint was that the commissioners continued to run the affairs illegally because their term of office had expired. It should also have been clear that Stevenson was not engaging in “frivolous, unfocused or self-serving litigation” and had not “frittered away this important public cause by bringing a weak or half baked action.” The legal point being raised was important and, as the subsequent ruling by the Supreme Court clearly shows, the