July 2001 Africa News Headlines

Monday, July 16, 2001 - Web posted at 9:18:52 GMT

Court puts Zim land grab on hold

HARARE - President Robert Mugabe has suffered a new blow to his attempt to seize white land after a court ruled that it would hear no more applications to approve confiscations until the rule of law had been restored on the country's commercial farmland.

The ruling last week by Judge Alfas Chitakunye of the administrative court meant that "government acquisition of the land was illegal in terms of the law, until law and order is restored", advocate Adrian de Bourbon said.

Approval by the administrative court is the last step in a complex legal and bureaucratic process in the "compulsory acquisition of land" by the government, and where owners can object to the confiscation of their land.

If the court finds the government has taken all steps laid down by the law, the government can formally declare the land to be state property and evict the owner.

However, in December last year the supreme court gave the government six months in which to end the anarchy on thousands of white-owned farms invaded by ruling party militias and illegally declared "state property" by government officials.

The deadline expired on July 1. On Wednesday, in the first case since then, the court sat to hear objections from farmer Chris Grobler over the seizing of his farm in the Makoni district.

The court found against the state.

- Nampa-Sapa-DPA

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