The Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein reserved judgement in the appeal of the Zimbabwean government against the North Gauteng High Court’s registration and enforcement of a ruling of the SADC Tribunal and the subsequent attachment of Zimbabwean property in Cape Town. The appeal case was heard yesterday.
The litigation began when a Zimbabwean farmer, Mike Campbell, approached the SADC Tribunal in Windhoek in 2008 for relief after he and his family had been targeted by the controversial land grabs of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. The tribunal, which consisted of five judges from various Southern African states, ruled in November 2008 that the Zimbabwean land reform process was illegal and racist and that Mr Campbell and 77 other farmers who intervened in his application, should be left in peace and their property rights be restored.
In the run-up to the proceedings before the SADC Tribunal, the elderly Mr Campbell, his wife Angela and son-in-law Ben Freeth were brutally assaulted by war veterans and intimidated to abandon their action before the Tribunal.
The case nevertheless proceeded and Campbell succeeded. Due to the severity of his injuries during the brutal assault, Mr Campbell’s health quickly deteriorated and he passed away in April last year.
AfriForum assisted Zimbabwean farmers with legal action which resulted in the registration of the tribunal’s finding in the North Gauteng High Court in February 2010 and the attachment of a Zimbabwean government-owned property in Kenilworth, Cape Town, to satisfy a punitive cost order granted by the Tribunal.
If Zimbabwe’s appeal is dismissed, international legal history will be made as the planned sale will be the first sale in execution of property belonging to a state that has committed gross human rights violations.
