- ZIMBABWE'S Supreme Court
on Tuesday declared the government's controversial land-grabs to be legal,
but the sole independent judge on the bench condemned the ruling and said
the court should be "abolished". Farm union officials immediately
advised farmers under pressure from state-backed squatters to abandon their
hopes of winning protection from the courts.
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- "There is no further avenue of appeal for the union,"
said Colin Cloete, president of the Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU), 85%
of whose 4 200 members are due to have their land seized by Mugabe's regime.
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- "Members are therefore advised that, given the stark
reality on the ground and in the courts, the most fruitful short-term solutions
to immediate problems are more likely to be achieved through discussion
with the government officials directing the (land seizure) exercise on
the ground." Copies of a judgement issued on Tuesday said that a majority
of four judges -- who were recently appointed by President Robert Mugabe
- had decided that the government had re-established the rule of law on
the country's white-owned farms and had implemented a proper programme
of land reform.
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- Chief justice Godfrey Chidyausiku said the government's
land reform programme was a matter of "social justice and not, strictly
speaking, a legal issue."
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- However, Judge Ahmed Ebrahim, the fifth member of the
bench, said it was "impossible" to state that the rule of law
had been restored on the country's white-owned farms, or that there was
a land reform programme. "It is not the function of the courts to
support the government of the day," he said in his dissenting judgment.
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- "The court's duty is to the law and the law alone.
They may never subvert the law. To act otherwise would create huge uncertainty
in the law," he said.
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- "This would truly deserve the epithet that was once
attributed to the short-lived Rhodesia and Nyasaland court of appeal (1953-63),
that it should be abolished under the lotteries suppression act."
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- The majority ruling was the first full endorsement of
a government strategy which has drawn international condemnation over the
wholesale deprivation of property rights, harassment and attacks against
farmers. It overturns an order given last year by the previous Supreme
Court bench, led by internationally-respected former chief justice Anthony
Gubbay, which declared that Mugabe's "fast track land reform programme"
was chaotic and illegal.
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- Gubbay resigned under threat of violence by Mugabe's
militias, and Mugabe appointed Chidyausiku in his place.
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- Another three judges were appointed in addition to the
four existing senior judges on the bench.
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- When the land case was heard in September, Chidyausiku
sidelined all but one of the senior judges -- Ebrahim -- and used the three
new judges to hear the matter with him.
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- They dismissed charges by the farmers' union that the
government had failed to restore the rule of law on the country's stricken
commercial farms where 39 farm workers and nine white farmers have been
murdered since February last year when state-backed militias began their
sometimes violent invasions of over 2 000 white-owned farms.
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- It also dismissed the farmers' appeal for police to be
held in contempt of court for refusing to carry out previous orders to
evict squatters and for failing to protect them from violence and lawlessness.
-
- The court also said that a law passed by Parliament earlier
this year to stop courts from ordering the eviction of squatters from white-owned
land, complied with the constitution.
-
- However, Ebrahim said that the state lawyers were "repeating
the arguments previously rejected by this court" under Gubbay. "All
the points were carefully considered and that court came to the conclusion
it did."
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- "Haphazard squatting cannot form part of a lawful
programme of land reform. It is not lawful for any occupier to be on the
land at all, let alone cut down trees, build homes, till land, graze their
cattle. It is a criminal offence."
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- "It is impossible to accept that the rule of law
has been restored." The Commercial Farmers' Union, of whose members
stand to be stripped of their land, said it was studying the ruling.
-
- However, advocate Adrian de Bourbon who represented the
CFU said the ruling was "an expected setback" but "it's
definitely the end of the road. The government announced about two weeks
ago it was appealing for international aid to alleviate imminent famine.
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- At the same time, Mugabe issued a decree that allowed
the regime to order white farmers off their land in 90 days and to sidestep
the involvement of the courts.
-
- Recent reports have revealed that senior government officials,
including police commissioner Augustine Chihuri, have been given "special
orders" from the Agriculture Ministry to allow them to take over farms.
- Sapa
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