WINDHOEK -- A group of commercial farmers from Zimbabwe and two lawyers who had travelled from South Africa for a hearing before the SADC Tribunal last Wednesday were surprised to find the case had not been put on the roll by the tribunal's registrar, who is said to have forgotten to do so. Despite the lawyers’ efforts to have a meeting with the SADC Tribunal president, Justice Luis Mondlane, in order to find a date, their request was denied. No comment could be obtained from the SADC Tribunal. The Registrar, Justice Charles Mkandawire, was out of the office and the five judges were in a court session.
“The staff at the SADC Tribunal appear to be overwhelmed by the approximately 20 law cases registered since the regional court was started four years ago,” Namibian human rights lawyer Norman Tjombe said.
“We forwarded the heads of arguments a month ago, application was sent to the Tribunal on February 12, the cover letter included the date of Wednesday, March 24 and just 30 minutes in the courtroom would have been sufficient,” Tjombe said.
Zimbabwean farmer Ben Freeth, who was beaten up by people who wanted to seize his family’s farm last year, was very disappointed. “This technical glitch hopefully was just incompetence and not done intentionally,” Freeth said.
“We set high hopes on this hearing as the situation on farms in Zimbabwe worsens every day, people get beaten up and farmworkers suffer from hunger.”
Zimbabwean farmers who lost their farms, the Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU) and the Southern African Commercial Farmers’ Union instituted an urgent legal action at the SADC Tribunal on February 12 this year.
They applied for a court order that the Zimbabwe government should be referred to the SADC Summit planned for August this year in Windhoek for possible suspension or expulsion from SADC.
The farmers claim that the Zimbabwean government is “in continued breach, defiance and contempt of the SADC Treaty and of the orders of the SADC Tribunal” by failing to comply with the judgments and orders of the SADC Tribunal.
According to Tjombe this step was taken after the Harare High Court rejected an application to register the SADC Tribunal’s earlier ruling, and the Zimbabwe government continued to arrest, prosecute and detain farmers who were successful in challenging the constitutionality of the land reform in the SADC Tribunal.
They won the case in November 2008, but the Zimbabwe government declared it would not adhere to the ruling. (First published by The Namibian)
Post published in: Politics