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ZimOnline - Farmers want court to order govt to uphold Tribunal ruling
28th January 2009

The appeal to the High Court comes as President Robert Mugabe’s government has sanctioned fresh farm seizures in recent weeks in open defiance of the Tribunal ruling.

David Drury, one of the lawyers representing the 77 white farmers, told ZimOnline that they had initially attempted to file an urgent application seeking the Harare High Court to formally register and recognise the ruling by the Tribunal, which is an arm of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).  

Once the Tribunal judgment is registered with the High Court it would make it more difficult for Harare to ignore the ruling. But the court turned down the application saying the matter was not urgent, according to Drury.

He said: "A second application for registration by Collin Cloete by way of an ordinary court application has been lodged under HC 33/09. Papers in opposition have not been received and the time limits to do so have expired.

"The Attorney General's Office intimated verbally, though not officially in writing, that they intend to oppose the registration, the reasons for doing so are yet to be articulated."

The Tribunal ruled last November that Mugabe’s programme to seize white-owned land for redistribution to landless blacks was racist and illegal under the SADC Treaty.

The regional court found that the group of farmers who approached it had been denied access to courts in Zimbabwe, while ordering Mugabe’s government not to evict the farmers and that the Harare administration compensates in full those it had already forced off farms.

However Mugabe’s government, which under the SADC Treaty is required to uphold decisions of the Tribunal, has ignored the ruling while top government officials and supporters of the ruling ZANU PF party have continued to evict white farmers.

In addition, Zimbabwe’s Deputy Chief Justice, Luke Malaba, two weeks ago publicly criticised the Tribunal ruling and said the regional court lacked jurisdiction to hear the application by white farmers, in the clearest indication yet Harare will not abide by the ruling.

Commenting on Malaba’s statement Drury said: "The fact that Justice Malaba has seen fit to comment on the judgment by an international court who applied international customary law considerations, is considered unfortunate by certain lawyers and academics as it seeks to pre-empt pending relief sought domestically, and more particularly in the High Court concerning the registration."

Out of about 4 500 white commercial farmers in Zimbabwe in 2000, only about 300 remain on farms after Mugabe evicted the rest and parcelled out their land to blacks, most of them supporters of his ZANU PF party and government.

Mugabe has defended the chaotic and often violent farm seizures as necessary to correct a colonial land tenure system that reserved most of the best arable land for whites while blacks were banished to arid and poor lands.

But critics say Mugabe’s cronies – and not ordinary peasants – benefited the most from farm seizures with some of them ending up with as many as six farms each against the government’s stated one-man-one-farm policy.

In addition, critics blame farm seizures for plunging Zimbabwe into severe food shortages after the government failed to support black peasants resettled on former white farms with inputs, skills training and funds to maintain production. – ZimOnline

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