What this means . . .

Parliament effectively means that there is currently no presiding officer for the Lower House, Clerk of Parliament, Mr Austin Zvoma has said.
In an interview yesterday, Mr Zvo-ma said they were still studying the legal implications of the Supreme Court judgment.
Mr Moyo was elected Speaker of Parliament in August 2008 following the harmonised elections held early that year.
Mr Zvoma said Parliament would soon announce a way forward follo-wing the ruling.
“What it means is that we don’t have a Speaker at the moment, but we are studying the whole judgment and the provisions of the Standing Orders,” said Mr Zvoma.
Some of the issues that he said ought to be established were whether it was legally possible to allow Deputy Spea-ker, Mrs Nomalanga Khumalo to act as Speaker.
But constitutional law expert, Professor Lovemore Madhuku said the import of the judgment means that the House of Assembly should elect a Speaker on the next day it sits.
“The Constitution compels Parlia-ment to elect a Speaker before they can transact any business.
“However, whatever he (Mr Moyo) did that is, in his administration work, he acted legally and cannot be taken to be void because of the presumption of lawful action,” said Prof Madhuku.
He, however, said it was not legally possible to allow the Deputy Speaker to act as Speaker.
Prof Madhuku said the post of Depu-ty Speaker would not be affected by the judgment since it was not the subject of the court action.

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