The Supreme Court of Zimbabwe ruled Monday in a court challenge brought by white farmers that the Zimbabwean government can legally expropriate agricultural equipment of white farmers under the Acquisition of Farm Equipment Act.
The ruling was on an appeal by a group of former farmers contesting seizures of equipment taken away during often violent farm seizures since 2000.
The highest court in the land ruled that the government expropriated the equipment with the public purpose of advancing the country’s farm seizure program which seeks to redistribute white-owned land.
White farmers who challenged the law argued that the program did not further a public purpose and that the government did not provide fair compensation within a reasonable time.
The judgment means the Agriculture ministry reserves the right to compulsorily acquire any farm equipment or materials such as fertilizers and chemicals on any acquired land.
Justice for Agriculture (JAG) spokesman John Worsley-Worswick described the decree as unlawful.
Needless to say this is totally unconstitutional on a number of grounds not least of which is the infringement on the individual citizens’ rights to own property in Zimbabwe, Worsely-Worswick said. This is another way of looting what little ex-farmers have got left. Most of it is up for sale anyway. It’s nothing less than daylight robbery.
In a press statement, deputy CEO of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), Trevor Gifford, said the judgment showed that there was some new generation of apartheid in Zimbabwe.
What the court has tried to do really is to legalize the wholesale theft of equipment from white commercial farmers, Gifford said. We envisage an upsurge in people taking the law into their hands, taking equipment. I am sure our members will turn to the courts in order to find a clear way forward.
The Zimbabwean government has expropriated approximately 4,000 farms through its controversial program, which was implemented following constitutional reforms in 2005.
Lands minister Didymus Mutasa has said that he would evict all white farmers until there was no longer any left operating legally in Zimbabwe .
It seems we have a new generation of apartheid, Gifford said, adding the few remaining white farmers were committed to farming in Zimbabwe, producing food and foreign currency for the nation.
Constitutional law expert Dr Lovemore Madhuku said there was an injustice in that, the judgment had the net effect of destroying the farmers’ only source of income.
That this minority group is surviving economically, to a large extent and sometimes solely by virtue of the ability to trade these moveable assets, is further indisputable evidence of the illegal, unconstitutional, inhumane and draconian nature of this regime, he said.
Several white farmers are facing criminal charges over their refusal to obey state-sponsored eviction orders. Zimbabwe’s inflation rate, which is almost 8,000 percent, is largely attributed to the seizures as productive farms have failed under new inexperienced farmers.
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