Chinamasa insists Zimbabwe will not be bound by SADC Tribunal rulings

By KING SHANGO

Published on: 22nd September, 2009

Related News

• Zimbabwe bank workers get 30 percent salary increment
• Zimbabwe WOZA holds UN Peace Day march
• Zimbabwe: 18 months prison for another MDC MP
• E-mails messages – the only state’s evidence against Bennett
• CIO plot new terror campaign in Masvingo
• Mnangagwa militia attack MDC int. spokesman’s mum
• Mugabe’s men threaten to shoot guards at Bennett’s home
• Efforts to bar killer cop from UN mission
• Highest paid Zimbabwean University lecturer earns less than US$300
• Zimbabwe’s all-stakeholders conference hurriedly convened – Zvoma

ZIMBABWE – HARARE – Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa maintains that Zimbabwe will continue to disassociate itself from the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Tribunal.

Chinamasa said Zimbabwe will only subject itself to the court once the constitution of the court is ratified by at least two-thirds of the 15-member bloc, in line with requirements of the rules and procedures governing the regional grouping.

Chinamasa’s arguments have been trashed by legal experts as flawed. They say the Zimbabwe government initially recognised the court and even seconded a judge to sit on the tribunal.

But Chinamasa said the SADC Tribunal does not have legitimate power to decide and determine any cases reported to it with regards to Zimbabwe.

Minister Chinamasa said the Protocol on the SADC Tribunal was implemented before it was referred to individual countries’ national legislatures for ratification as required by the regional grouping’s country’s laws.

“The tribunal was just like someone sitting under a tree and pretending that he is now a court. They are not a court until they are properly constituted,” said Chinamasa.

He pointed out that at the time the SADC Tribunal became functional, only two out of the ten countries had ratified it adding that the tribunal misconstrued its mandate by creating itself into a court of “first instance” and a “court of appeal”.

“When I say court of first instance I mean a Zimbabwean who feels they can avoid the courts of the country they can go direct to the tribunal…The court of appeal means that anyone may ignore our Supreme Court and seek audience from the very tribunal,” said Chinamasa.

A group of 79 white commercial farmers took Zimbabwe to the SADC Tribunal in a bid to block the compulsory acquisition of their farms by the state for redistribution under the land reform programme.

The tribunal, which is based in the Namibian capital Windhoek, subsequently made two judgments in the white farmers’ favor, an interim relief and a final relief order barring the acquisitions.

After the court ruled against the land grab, Chinamasa then tried to pull Zimbabwe out the tribunal.