Harare — A week before the general election, the Zimbabwe High Court denied the main opposition Citizens' Coalition for Change (CCC) access to the final voter list, Times Live reports.

High Court Judge Never Katiyo dismissed the CCC's request for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to reveal the final voter list and the list of polling places as "not urgent".

The ZEC gave the main opposition an electronic copy in July, but the opposition said it was riddled with errors and irregularities.

Court records state that on July 14, August 3, August 8, and August 10, the CCC wrote to the ZEC expressing concerns about the inconsistencies, but the electoral authority did not respond.

Since the final voters' list is now being withheld, this means the main opposition party in Zimbabwe won't have access to crucial data regarding the voter rolls and the list of polling places before the election.

Zimbabwean lawyer and opposition leader David Coltart claimed after the verdict that the country's court system had "plumbed new depths".

"How can an application to obtain the final voters' roll to be used in a general election in just over a week's time not be urgent?" Coltart is reported to have asked.

The CCC said that it had contacted the high court to request a quick meeting with the judge.

"For months now, we have relentlessly demanded the immediate release of the national voters' roll for the election. Shockingly, ZEC is shamefully hiding it, blatantly disregarding its constitutional duty to make it public. We were forced to take them to court to demand it, but the court callously dismissed it as non-urgent. We demand the immediate release of the voters' roll," said the CCC on Twitter.