SA accepts Zim land reform unlawful

MEDIA STATEMENT:  AfriForum

26 November 2009 

South African Government accepts Zim land reform exercise is unlawful and undertakes to honour SADC Tribunal judgments. 

The North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria made an order in terms of which the Government of South Africa undertakes to respect and honour the judgments by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal in favour of commercial farmers in Zimbabwe, and to uphold the rights and remedies of victims of Zimbabwe’s unlawful land expropriation exercise. 

The order concludes urgent court proceedings brought by AfriForum on behalf of a South African citizen farming in Zimbabwe, Mr Louis Fick. The proceedings were instituted pursuant to revelations last Friday that the Government of South Africa intended to enter into a BIPPA with Zimbabwe on 27 November. 

The BIPPA was generally understood to have the effect to exclude the enforcement of the SADC Tribunal’s orders, and to exempt Zimbabwe from liability for past human rights violations. 

This result would be contrary to South Africa’s legal obligations in terms of its Constitution and international law.  AfriForum tried to engage in dialogue with the Minister of Trade and Industry regarding the terms of the proposed BIPPA.  The request was not acceded to, however. 

This necessitated the urgent legal proceedings seeking to interdict the Government of South Africa from signing the BIPPA tomorrow. As to the terms of the proposed BIPPA, the South African Government accepts in its court papers that the Zimbabwean land reform exercise is unlawful.

It also acknowledges the binding nature of the SADC Tribunal’s rulings, and international obligations pursuant thereto. The South African Government gave the assurance that the embargoed text of the BIPPA does not purport to attain the unlawful result of reducing existing legal and political rights and remedies. 

It stated emphatically that the BIPPA does not “purport to grant immunity to Zimbabwe for any human rights violations”. Accordingly the Government of South Africa undertook in the settlement to respect and honour the SADC Tribunal’s rulings, as well as other obligations in terms of other sources of international law and the Constitutional to protect victims of the unlawful Zimbabwean land reform exercise. 

AfriForum welcomes this undertaking and the court order stating that South Africans seeking to register and enforce the SADC Tribunal finding would now, in addition be armed with a formal undertaking of the South African Government endorsed by the High Court. 

The court’s order opens the way for registering the SADC Tribunal’s judgments in South Africa and to pursue other remedies, which Afriforum and other interested parties will now consider. 

Willie Spies: AfriForum legal representative