An official with the Namibia-based regional court told ZimOnline that it would hear the case of Mike Campbell and 77 other white landowners after postponing hearing the appeals in May because of elections in Zimbabwe. The official said in addition to the main appeal, two other applications one by some farmers assaulted during the run-up to June’s presidential run-off election and the other by farmers forcibly evicted from their properties could be head today.The case will be heard at the Tribunal’s supreme court room at 9:30 am. There is a possibility that there might be three applications to be heard that is the main case and two urgent applications, said Dennis Shivangulula, an official with the SADC court.The regional court last December temporarily barred the Harare government from confiscating Campbell’s land pending the hearing of an application by the farmer challenging the legality of Mugabe’s programme to seize white land for redistribution to landless blacks.
In a later ruling, the Tribunal allowed applications from 77 more Zimbabwe white farmers to be combined with Campbell’s application so they could be all dealt with as one.The white farmers want the Tribunal to declare Mugabe’s controversial land reform programme racist and illegal under the SADC Treaty. Article 6 of the regional Treaty bars member states from discriminating against any person on the grounds of gender, religion, race, ethnic origin and culture.A ruling declaring land reform illegal would have far reaching consequences for Mugabe’s government, opening the floodgates to thousands of claims of damages by dispossessed white farmers.
Such a ruling could also set the Harare government on a collision course with its SADC allies particularly if it – as it has always done with court rulings against its land reforms – refuses to abide by an unfavourable Tribunal judgment. Farm seizures are blamed for plunging Zimbabwe into severe food shortages after the government displaced established white commercial farmers and replaced them with either incompetent or inadequately funded black farmers. – ZimOnline