Chegutu farmer defends criticism of legal ruling on land

By Alex Bell
19 February 2010

A commercial farmer, who was facing contempt of court charges for criticising a shock ruling by a High Court Judge, has defended his comments in a letter to the Law Society of Zimbabwe, urging the body to be “a strong voice for human rights.”

Chegutu farmer Ben Freeth has been campaigning for the implementation of a regional land ruling in 2008, that declared Zimbabwe’s land ‘reform’ programme unlawful. He was accused of contempt of court, after he criticised High Court Judge Barack Patel’s decision to dismiss the same ruling in Zimbabwe last month.

Justice Patel dismissed a finding by the human rights court of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which ruled that Robert Mugabe’s land grab campaign was unlawful. Justice Patel said the regional Tribunal’s ruling would have no effect in Zimbabwe because of the political upheaval that reversing 10 years of land seizures would cause.

In response to the ruling, Freeth, who heads the SADC Tribunal Rights Watch group, said: “It is a sad day for any country rife with human rights abuse when a member of the judiciary entrenches the future possibility of human rights abuse.” In a statement Freeth likened Justice Patel’s actions to those of “judges under dictatorial regimes such as in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Soviet Union.”

Gerald Mlotshwa, a lawyer who was involved in the case, has since written to the Law Society of Zimbabwe and the government saying Freeth’s conduct was in contempt of court. Mlotshwa also urged the Law Society to “issue a public statement condemning the unwarranted attack on the Independence of the Judiciary and in particular on the integrity of the Honourable Mr. Justice Patel.”

The letter was reportedly also copied to Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa, Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, Judge President Rita Makarau and lawyers Gollop and Blank.
Mlotshwa told the state’s mouthpiece newspaper the Herald that Freeth’s statements ‘fell outside the limits of reasonable courtesy in publicly criticising judges.’

“By effectively labelling Justice Patel a Nazi judge responsible for legalising ethnic cleansing, Mr Freeth clearly intended to shake public and international confidence in the manner in which justice is being administered by the High Court, and in particular the learned judge in Zimbabwe,” Mlotshwa told the Herald.
More than 4,000 farming families and at least a million of their workers and their families have been driven off their land and out of their homes since Mugabe launched the land grab campaign a decade ago. The country’s leading agricultural workers’ union, GAPWUZ, has said that at least 60% of workers evicted in the land reform exercise were beaten and brutalised by land invaders. Farmers, who kept in contact with their staff after eviction, have reported that 40% have died since losing their homes and jobs. Meanwhile, most of the beneficiaries of ‘land reform’ have been top ZANU PF officials who now own multiple properties. These farms have mostly been left to run barren, leaving the ‘breadbasket’ of Africa almost wholly dependent on food aid.

It is for this reason that Freeth criticised Patel’s ruling, explaining that far from being for the ‘public good,’ the land reform program has ‘indisputably’ been a programme of violent, forced eviction that has resulted in the total collapse of agriculture in Zimbabwe. Freeth has now also written to the Law Society defending his comments, arguing that the legal body should also criticise the ruling.

“If the law society is to help protect human rights and safeguard “the preservation of the rule of law” in Zimbabwe I believe it is incumbent on it to express its serious concern about the Patel Judgment refusing the registration of the SADC Tribunal awards, vigorously and widely,” Freeth wrote.

Freeth added: “The strong voice of the Law Society in defence of human rights and the rule of law in Zimbabwe is greatly needed.”