THE Zimbabwe Election Support Network (Zesn) and Election Resource Centre (ERC) employees and volunteers are suing Home Affairs minister Kazembe Kazembe and Police Commissioner-General Godwin Matanga for seizing their electronic gadgets.
The employees and volunteers were recently cleared by the courts for lack of evidence after they were arrested for allegedly contravening the Electoral Act during the August 2023 harmonised elections.
The 35 Zesn and ERC employees and volunteers were arrested for allegedly planning to announce the result of the elections before the official results were made public and for attempting to commit a crime.
The arrests followed a raid at their offices in Harare, where their gadgets, including mobile phones and laptops, were seized by the law enforcements agents.
In court, prosecutors alleged that the employees and volunteers attempted to announce the 2023 harmonised elections outcome by consolidating poll results with the intention of announcing them to the public through the media before the official announcement by Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec).
But on May 30, the 35 election watchdog employees were freed after prosecutors withdrew charges citing lack of evidence to rely on during trial.
The Zesn and ERC employees and volunteers have since filed an urgent court application at the High Court seeking an order compelling the law enforcement agency and Kazembe to release their electronic gadgets.
In the application filed last month by Kossam Ncube of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, the employees argued that their electronic gadgets were being unlawfully held by the police since the charges had been formally withdrawn.
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They also submitted that they are suffering unbearable inconvenience by being deprived of usage of their gadgets for personal and business purposes owing to police refusal to release their mobile phones and laptops.
“The conduct of the police officers in refusing to release our gadgets flies in the face of clear provisions of section 58(1)(d)(i) of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act, which obliges ZRP to forthwith release their gadgets following the withdrawal of criminal charges,” they submitted.
In response to the request by the ERC and Zesn employees and volunteers, the law enforcement agency argued that it was unable to release the gadgets owing to undisclosed and pending investigations, which the police were carrying out in spite of the criminal charges having been withdrawn.
High Court judge Justice Neville Wamambo has reserved ruling after presiding over the hearing of the urgent court application.
