By Tatenda Dewa | Harare Bureau |
Forty-two former farm workers have lodged an application at the High Court challenging the constitutionality of their eviction in 2000.
President Robert Mugabe’s government embarked on a controversial fast track land redistribution exercise from early 2000, forcefully displacing some 6,000 white farmers who employed and accommodated thousands of workers and their families.
According to a statement by Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), the High Court has set down the appeal by Benias Yoramu and 41 others in which they are challenging Section 3(5) of the Gazetted Land (Consequential Provisions) Act, Chapter 20:28.
The case was set down for Monday this week.
The former farm workers who were employed at a farm in Mazowe before it was compulsorily acquired in September 2000 are being represented by Jeremiah Bhamu, a ZLHR lawyer.
The workers resisted their eviction and were arrested and brought to court where they were convicted in August 2015.
However, Yoramu and the other applicants are arguing that their eviction violated Section 74 of the constitution that guarantees freedom from arbitrary eviction.
If the application succeeds, it could open a floodgate of other challenges as thousands of farm workers, most of them of foreign origin, were thrown out and rendered homeless when their former employers were removed. Nehanda Radio
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