Zimbabwe to challenge South African court ruling on assets seizure

ZIMBABWE will appeal against a judgment by a South African High Court to dispose of a property owned by the Government to compensate white former commercial farmers whose land was redistributed to landless blacks.

In an interview yesterday, Attorney General Mr Johannes Tomana, criticised the judgment by the Pretoria High Court saying it was premised on decisions of the disbanded Sadc Tribunal.

"The judgment of the Tribunal was the basis they went to South Africa for the purposes of enforcement.

"Our position is that the judgment is not enforceable in a domestic court like the High Court of South Africa.

"We challenged the legality of the Tribunal and that challenge was sustained resulting in the Tribunal being disbanded.

"There is therefore no basis that anybody can want to seek to enforce that judgment," he said.

Mr Tomana added: "That judgment is confusing, what is it they are trying to enforce? Are they trying to bind us to a Tribunal, which was disbanded, or a Treaty, which we did not sign. We will not accept that judgment and we are going to appeal against it."

The AG said the matter could have been politicised ahead of the extraordinary Sadc summit to be held in South Africa over the weekend.

Harare lawyer Mr Farai Mutamangira said the stance taken by the South African courts was tantamount to enforcing a nullity.

"The entire process pending in South Africa had become academic anyway by reason of the fact that the Tribunal had been disbanded, as having been improperly constituted from the beginning, so the effect thereof was to render all its decisions a nullity and consequently unenforceable, more-so considering that the primary enforcement mechanism provided by the Sadc treaty is through the Summit of the Heads of States.

"In the circumstances, the Municipal Courts of South Africa are merely compounding a situation that was supposed to naturally unwind. It's a typical case of 'a jurisdiction courting controversy' and seeking to write history from the right to the left," said Mr Mutamangira.

Pretoria High Court judge Roger Claasen on Monday ruled and granted an order that the former commercial farmers could attach Zimbabwe's property in Cape Town because it was not covered by diplomatic immunity as it was being used for commercial purposes.

Zimbabwe's High Court refused to register the order by the Tribunal last year and the former farmers, led by Michael Campbell (now late), Louis Fick and Richard Etheridge then approached the South African courts.

The Sadc Tribunal was dissolved at the extraordinary Sadc Summit held in Namibia last month after its operations had been suspended in August last year.

Ministers of Justice and Attorneys General from the region were then tasked of reconstituting the Tribunal and giving it a new mandate.

The rulings by the Tribunal before its dissolution were also nullified.

The dissolution of the Tribunal follows arguments by Zimbabwe that the body was improperly constituted as the requisite number of countries had not ratified the treaty establishing it.

Five countries instead of 10 ratified the treaty.

Zimbabwe argued that the Tribunal's rulings contravened the country's constitution and were meant to reverse the revolutionary land reform programme.