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Legal Documents Relating to Land Reform in Zimbabwe

Gramara (Pvt) Ltd. V. Zimbabwe (Hc Zimb.) : Von Abo V. South Africa (HC S. AFR.)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2017

Oliver R. Jones  and
Chido Dunn
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Extract

In Gramara (Private) Ltd. & Others v. Government of Zimbabwe & Others (‘‘Gramara’’)1 and Von Abo v. Government of South Africa (‘‘Von Abo’’),2 the legitimacy of Zimbabwe’s land reform program has once again come under the judicial microscope. In Gramara, Judge Patel of the Zimbabwean High Court refused to enforce a decision of the Southern African Development Community (‘‘SADC’’) Tribunal that declared the program inconsistent with a range of human rights protections. By contrast, in Von Abo, Judge Prinsloo of the South African High Court virulently condemned the South African government’s failure to afford the applicant farm-owner diplomatic protection in relation to the government of Zimbabwe’s confiscations of land owned by South African nationals. The decisions throw into sharp relief both the potential and the limitations of the application of international law in the domestic context.

Type
International Legal Materials
Information
International Legal Materials , Volume 49 , Issue 5 , October 2010 , pp. 1380 - 1403
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 2010

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References

1 High Court of Zimbabwe (Jan. 26, 2010) [hereinafter Gramara].

2 High Court of South Africa, Case No. 3106/07 (Feb. 5, 2010) [hereinafter Von Abo].

3 The program was given constitutional recognition in section 16A of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, which was introduced by the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 16) Act 2000. The program was further entrenched following the enactment of the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 17) Act 2005.

4 Mike Campbell (Pvt) Ltd. v. Minister of Nat’l Security Responsible for Land, Land Reform and Resettlement, Supreme Court of Zimbabwe, Judgment No. 49/07.

5 SADC’s fifteen member states are Angola, Botswana, DRC, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The Community was formally established with the signing of the SADC Treaty in 1992.

6 Mike Campbell (Pvt) Ltd. v. Republic of Zimbabwe, Case No. SADC(T) 2/2007.

7 Mtingwi v. SADC Secretariat, Case No. SADC(T) 1/2007 (the case was filed fourteen days before Campbell, but was dismissed in May 2008).

8 Gramara, supra note 1, at 12-13.

9 Id. 18.

10 Id. 19.

11 Von Abo, supra note 2, ¶ 58(4).

12 Id. ¶ 67.

13 Id. ¶ 58(6).

14 In this vein, see also Funnekotter et al. v. Republic of Zimbabwe, ICSID Case No. ARB/05/6, Award (Apr. 22, 2009).