The Herald
Harare City Council once again faces a civil legal challenge in the High Court over its public parking policies and charges in the city centre and surrounding areas, and the judge who hears that case when it eventually rises to the top of the civil roll, will apply the law, and decide if the by-laws and charges are legal.
But that is only a small part of the story, the rest being something outside the ambit of the courts, starting with the basic policies, the way the city council sets the rates, the uses it puts the money towards, and the general effects that the whole system has on business in the central business district.
To a large extent, while the judge can map what is happening against the enabling laws, there are limits to what a judge can do when it comes to the fairness or lack of fairness of the whole policy and system, since this should be decided by the city council which has the legislative and executive functions for local government in the city.
To be fair to the city council and its commercial subsidiary, City Parking, which actually applies the council’s parking policies, a lot of problems have been sorted out, but at great cost both to those who wish to park in the environs of the city centre and in how this has affected businesses and others who make their living in the city centre.
Much of the illegal parking, the extortion rackets that used to sell parking, the high levels of congestion arising from people seeking parking and the like…
