United Parties v. Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs [1998] 1 LRC 614 (Supreme Court of Zimbabwe)

In 1992 the Political Parties (Finance) Act was passed which made provision for the state funding of political parties. Section 3(3) provided that all political parties would be entitled to state funding in proportion to the number of their members elected to parliament, so long as they had a minimum of 15 elected members. At that time ZANU(PF) candidates were elected to 117 of the 120 parliamentary seats and in the 1995 general election this increased to 118 out of 120 seats. The effect of section 3(3) was that only ZANU(PF) qualified for state funding. The applicant was a recognized political party formed in 1994. It had no members of parliament and thus did not qualify for any state funding. It sought a declaration that section 3 infringed the constitutional right to freedom of expression and was therefore invalid.