Questions are being raised over the true motive behind the Southern African Development Community's decision to review the mandate of the regional bloc's human rights court.
SADC officials have denied that the Tribunal has been suspended, shortly after resolving to review the "role functions and terms of reference" of the court. The review process is set to take six months and during that time the court won't be handling any new cases or completing any current ones. Despite this, SADC executive secretary Tomaz Salamao insists that the Tribunal has not been suspended.
SADC is now facing criticism for using the review process to avoid confronting Robert Mugabe for disregarding the rule of law. The Tribunal ruled in 2008 that Mugabe's land grab campaign was unlawful and discriminatory, and ordered the Zimbabwe government to protect commercial farmers, their rights to their land, and pay compensation for land already seized.
But in Zimbabwe the Tribunal has been snubbed by the government, with Mugabe and Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa declaring that the Tribunal's rulings were 'null and void'. The High Court then ruled that the Tribunal's orders on land reform have no authority in Zimbabwe, despite the country being a signatory to the SADC Treaty.
Chegutu farmer Ben Freeth, who heads the SADC Tribunal Rights Watch group, told SW Radio Africa on Thursday that there are serious concerns over the motives behind SADC's decision. Freeth and his father-in-law Mike Campbell led the farmers Tribunal case against Mugabe's government in 2008. He said on Thursday that the decision to review the mandate of the court is a serious threat to SADC's credibility.
"The net result of this is that justice gets delayed, and justice delayed is justice denied," Freeth said.
Freeth and Campbell still have outstanding legal matters in the Tribunal, but despite assurances that the court hasn't been suspended, one of the farmers' cases has already been delayed. Freeth explained that he's already received a letter from the Tribunal's registrar to say that their case, meant to be heard next, has been indefinitely delayed.
"Nobody really knows what is going on and even the Tribunal staff was shell-shocked when I spoke to them," Freeth said. "At the end of the day it seems like politics is trumping justice."
The Zimbabwe government's refusal to honour the ruling has also affected a number of South African farmers, who are still facing intimidation and persecution by land invaders in Zimbabwe. Those farmers eventually turned to the South African courts to try and have the SADC Tribunal ruling enforced. The South African courts this year set a precedent by recognizing the SADC decision as being enforceable, ruling in favour of the farmers.
The farmers have been represented by South African civil rights initiative AfriForum. The group legal representative, Willie Spies, told SW Radio Africa on Wednesday that the decision to suspend the SADC Tribunal was "a source of serious concern." He warned that it is "very bad news" for the Southern African region if disregard for the rule of law is supported in this way.
"We do not want to be sending a message from Africa that we are disregarding human rights. We do not want to send a message that the rule of law is being tramped on when it does not suit the rulers in power," Spies said.
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I am not happy if there is just going to be a "review of the powers of the SADC Tribunal". I would have favoured a situation where the whole monster is totally disbanded and we start afresh without interference from any quarter whatsoever.
Remember that this Tribunal, although the initial intention of establishing same was noble, was hijacked by the EU, UK and USA and was fast-tracked to hear cases of Zimbabwe's colonial land invaders who want to continue holding on to what is not theirs; what they got through racism, plunder, oppression, subjugation, slavery and the barbaric extermination of black Zimbabweans from 1890 to 1980.
The SADC Tribunal was never snubbed in Zimbabwe. Logically it is not possible to snub a none-existent thing or entity. To us the Tribunal does not exist because the protocol establishing same was never ratified by the required number (two thirds) of governments. What is two thirds of 14 member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC)? Up to this day only five governments have ratified the protocol.
Only until the required number (10) has signed the protocol will the rulings from this court be enforceable in all countries. The registration of the rulings of this Tribunal by a South African court only helps to prove a very important point that our neighbours to the South still have a long way to go to establishing a truly democratically reflective justice system.
How can any sane court rule that the Tribunals findings are enforceable when only 5 countries have signed the protocol establishing the Court? Not only that, even after the required number of Member States have signed the protocol; the judgments still need to be put to a SADC Summit for them to be enforceable.
What prompted the Apartheid courts to recognize the rulings is the fear within the ranks and file of the Boer invaders of Azanian land that the same thing will visit them soon. They will do everything in their power to divert the attention of the black people of Azania from tackling the land issue head-on, hence the formation of an Apartheid outfit - Afriforum.
No country in SADC is against the establishment of the SADC Tribunal all of us are for it. We in Zimbabwe have, from the word go, actually and always seconded a judge to this court which goes to show how much importance we attach to the existence of this court, especially as it is intended to protect the interests of those who have been disadvantaged for centuries on end the indigenous black people of Southern Africa in particular and Africa in general.
We have never intended to have it financed, from head to toe, by imperialists because that is tantamount to putting a hyena in the same kraal with goats or sheep. The situation obtaining now is dangerous in that even our independence (political) can be reversed by this court if nothing is done to stop it ones and for all.
How can a court, established for the interests and protection of those dispossessed at the time of invasion, ignore the fact that land was cruelly, satanically and barbarically grabbed from black people by Boers? Can such a court continue to claiming to be legitimate in the eyes of the victims of colonialism?
How can a court order the return of land to people who got it racially, without the observance of any law and with so much brutality on the owners of that land? How can a sane court order the use of tax-payer money to pay for the soil that is 'Zimbabwe' (which was NEVER paid for in the first place)? How can a supposedly Africa court declare the land reform in Zimbabwe racial when it was done according to the laws of our country?
How many amendments have we made, to the Lancaster House Constitution, which are meant to align it with public and popular sentiments in our country, always ensuring that the rights of everybody (invaders and invaded) are protected? What would have stopped us from taking our land back without using the courts - completely nothing - as we had the mandate from our people? We are using the courts because we respect the rule of law, and people and property rights.
How can a court disregard the rights of those whose land was barbarically taken away from them and still claim to be legitimate? The SADC Tribunal had become an eye-sore not only to Zimbabwe and its suffering people but to the whole of this region.
There is no way this court could have been allowed to continue overriding constitutions of member states. It is only fair to those formerly colonized that the court is suspended indefinitely - never to be re-constituted in this form and with the same sellout judges again.
It is sad that that the SADC Tribunal has become all about the Land Reform in Zimbabwe. i will not comment on the land reform itself, but what everyone seems to be forgetting is that those are not the only cases that the Tribunal has been handling. what happens to the genuinely human rights cases that are not political in anyway, where is the justice for those people going to come from, since they have failed to get it from their domestic courts? is it not better to regularise whatever needs to be regularised and then continue to have this important court in existence?
Alex Bell, again she is practising advocancy and imperial journalism. She has always lobbied for a small band of "knighted" rich British farmers, who want to occupy farms illegelly. There is nothing from her that is truthful. It is all about so-called white farmer injustice. Alex Bell forgets that land grab was the practise of white British colonialists and their relates in Zimbabwe. How about the new farmers? She thinks the Zimbabwean gov't will just give land to whites if she shouts louder. Zimbabweans must fully be prepared to fight a war should these misguided British "knighted" farmers show up. Knighted farmers belong in British offices, and not on the soils of Zimbabwe.
These knighted farmers are asking too much from a poor country and maybe the British gov't is just trying to pull a prank on Zimbabwe. Just go away and serve your Queen and leave Zimbabwe alone!!
Phiri you guys all seem to be So intimidated by these white guys who happen to be, wealthy or not, just farmers. Two things come to mind. You are afraid to compete with them and you are too lazy to develop virgin land hence the reason you want them out so that you can move in where the land has already been prepared, produce ready for the picking and their homes ready for the taking. You are fooling no one. If you so loved the land, then you would be breaking your backs developing new farms, plowing and the only thing you would be praying for is for good rains and harvests and not for the white farmer next door to die. Face it, you hate them because they are good at what they do and you have an inferiority complex hence the clamour to have them leave. Once they are all gone you will be turning against one another with jealousy, witching each other and seeking witch doctors for medicines to make the other be unsuccessful or harvesting dead human parts to be "more successful." Albinos are now endangered human beings because of this as that is how you Africans roll.
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