The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal is expected this week to rule over a last-ditch bid by a white Zimbabwean commercial farmer to stave off an impending eviction from his farms or to receive compensation.
The case, the first to be tried by the tribunal and considered an acid test to SADC’s commitment to justice and democracy, was heard before a panel of three judges on Tuesday this week in the Supreme Court in Namibia’s capital Windhoek..
Through Senior Counsel Adrian de Bourbon, his South African-based lawyer, 75-year-old William Michael Campbell of Mount Carmel in Zimbabwe is seeking relief for himself, his family and all his employees "from the continued onslaught of invasions and intimidation" on his farm.
Campbell has laid charges against the Zimbabwean government for expropriating his farm, saying it was done on racial grounds.
He is also facing charges in Zimbabwe for refusing to vacate his farm which the government said had been earmarked for expropriation following an October ruling by Tinashe Ndokera, a Zimbabwean magistrate, that those farmers still on farms targeted for seizure after a September 30 deadline to vacate the properties were in breach of the law.
Ndokera ruled that any farmer still on land after the expiry of the deadline was "trespassing on state property".
Senior counsel Adrian de Bourbon, who is representing Campbell, told the tribunal that about 65 permanent adult employees, 67 adult family dependants, 120 children of employees and eight members of Campbell family lived and worked on the farm.
He said his client had also experienced delays from the Zimbabwe Supreme Court in ruling on a Constitutional Amendment 17 of 2005, which Campbell challenged in March.
The amendment removes the legal right of farm owners to challenge compulsory land expropriations in a court in Zimbabwe.
“We have also written to the Supreme Court asking it for some urgency in dealing with the matter and have not heard from them. My client is in the dark,” said de Bourbon.
He added, “When it became apparent that the Supreme Court ruling would take a long time, the respondent (government) took the law into its hands and has been trying everything to dispose the applicant from his land.”
The Zimbabwe government was represented by junior officials from the country’s Attorney-General’s office, who reportedly used public transport to travel to Namibia after their vehicle allegedly ran out of fuel in that country’s resort town of Victoria Falls en-route from the capital Harare.
The officials argued before the tribunal that it did not have the jurisdiction to try the case since it was already before the courts in Zimbabwe to which de Bourbon said: “The Zimbabwe constitution excludes any recourse through the courts such that the question of a domestic remedy to solve the case does not help. We were left with no other alternative besides approaching the court.”
Based in Windhoek, the SADC tribunal was established in 1992 under Article 9 of the SADC treaty as one of the central institutions of the regional body, with the mandate to ensure that member countries adhere to the treaty, protocols and other legal instruments which require member states to respect the law.
But it was only launched only in 2005 and has only made news when its headquarters in Windhoek were gutted by a fire early this year.
Observers however say the Campbell case would test the impartiality of the regional Tribunal.
The Zimbabwean government has kicked out more than 4,000 commercial white farmers since 200 in a land reform programme which the government argued was meant to address ‘colonial imbalances’.
The programme has decimated agricultural production by more than 60 per cent, and it is reported to have contributed to the economic downturn in the southern African nation.