WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2001-12-05 Time: 18:02:32 Posted By: Jan
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.
“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.
“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.
Chief justice Godfrey Chidyausiku said the government’s land reform
programme was a matter of “social justice and not, strictly speaking, a
legal issue.”
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.
“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.
“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.”
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.
Gubbay resigned under threat of violence by Mugabe’s militias, and Mugabe
appointed Chidyausiku in his place.
Another three judges were appointed in addition to the four existing
senior judges on the bench.
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.
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.
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.”
“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.”
“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.
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