THE regional tribunal of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has ruled that the failure of the Zimbabwe government to register a previous ruling at its high court should be referred to the SADC summit in Windhoek next month.

"The application of farmers Louis Fick and Michael Campbell is granted as the respondent - the Zimbabwean government - failed to comply with a previous order of the SADC Tribunal," Justice Jamu Mutambo said on Friday.

"The Tribunal also grants the relief sought by the applicants to have this matter referred to the upcoming SADC summit," Mutambo added.

At the end of 2008, the Tribunal ruled in favour of 77 white Zimbabwean farmers and ordered that the Harare government should not interfere in their livelihood and that of the workers on their farms.

Since then, however, most of these farmers have been chased off their land, their farm houses were burnt down, crops destroyed and livestock stolen, apart from physical violence the owners and farmworkers had to endure.

Last month, two of those farmers, Louis Fick and Michael Campbell, filed an application through local lawyer Norman Tjombe at the SADC Tribunal as the Zimbabwe government had violated the 2008 Tribunal ruling and had also failed to register it with the Harare high court, which SADC member states must do.

The Tribunal found in 2008 that Zimbabwe had wrongly taken land from nearly 80 farmers, saying they had been targeted due to their race. Cape Town-based lawyer Jeremy Gauntlett argued the case, instructed by Tjombe.

White farmers in Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of the region, have faced compulsory expulsions and the loss of their land turned over to indigenous Zimbabweans since President Robert Mugabe launched land reforms a decade ago, aiming to correct a colonial legacy that left whites owning most of the best farmland.

The annual SADC summit will be held in Windhoek in the middle of next month when President Hifikepunye Pohamba will take over the chairmanship from Joseph Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

"We are satisfied with the ruling as these farmers have experienced repeated violence and were chased off their farms and their workers harassed," Tjombe said on Friday.

"Evidence is building up against Zimbabwe as a rogue country, not respecting justice and human rights. If the SADC summit does not take action on this matter, SADC and its Tribunal can only be regarded as a white elephant," Tjombe added.

Zimbabwe's chaotic land reform campaign was marred by deadly political violence and wrecked the country's farm-based economy, leaving it dependent on international food aid.