Harare - Zimbabwe's Supreme Court ordered President Robert Mugabe on Thursday to produce a "workable" land-reform programme in six months and effectively declared unlawful his drive to seize white-owned farms without paying compensation.
The court called on his government to protect hundreds of farmers whose land has been occupied by self-styled war veterans since February, saying they were being subjected to "wickedness". Five have been murdered and many assaulted.
But in a ruling on an application by white farmers, the court declined to declare Mugabe's current drive to seize white-owned farms for blacks wholly illegal, saying land reform was imperative and some procedures had been carried out legally.
A government spokesperson said that the whole decision was "of no consequence".
"The government, through the president, has already pronounced its attitude to these kinds of decisions. The court decisions are of no, or little, consequence if they are meant to interfere with the current programme."
The mainly white Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) took the government to court, arguing that presidential powers used by Mugabe to seize white-owned land for black resettlement were invalid under the constitution.
The 4 500-member CFU welcomed the ruling, saying it offered the country an opportunity to move forward peacefully. "Because the ruling underlines the rule of law and order and also addresses the need for land reform, it's an opportunity we must all embrace," CFU president Tim Henwood said.
In a 30-page ruling, the five-member Supreme Court also gave Mugabe's government six months to July 1 to evict self-styled independence war veterans from hundreds of white-owned farms, saying it had a constitutional duty to ensure law and order and safeguard the lives of all citizens.
"It is declared that there is not in existence at the present time a programme of land reform as that phrase is used in section 16A of the constitution," it said.
"It is ordered that an interdict prohibiting the respondents from taking any further steps in the acquisition of land for resettlement is hereby granted, but its operation is postponed until July 1 2001, to enable the respondents to produce a workable programme of land reform, and to enable the respondents to satisfy this court that the rule of law has been restored in the commercial farming areas of Zimbabwe," the court said.
"Wicked things have been done and continue to be done. They must stop," it added.
But the court said it did not agree with the farmers that because the land reform scheme had been tainted, the only appropriate relief was to stop the programme.
"The activities of the past nine months must be condemned. But that does not mean that we can ignore the imperative of land reform. We cannot punish what is wrong by stopping what is right."
The court added the government had shown that it was unwilling to carry out a legally sustainable programme by overreaching itself in the amount of land it has targeted. - Reuters