Top court overturns 26-year-old Zimbabwe land grab

Zimbabwe’s highest court on constitutional matters has delivered a stunning land grab victory to a family that had been facing off the government for years. It comes after decades of dispute, and it is the umpteenth time that the courts have had to consider aspects of the matter. The latest decision, however, finally confirms that the disputed property was ‘improperly acquired by the state’. It’s a most unusual outcome, given that legislation had seemed to have given the government virtually unchecked powers to take land, and that the legislation was coupled with an ouster clause designed to prevent the courts from even considering whether a land ‘acquisition’ was lawful. In her A Matter of Justice column on the Legalbrief site, Carmel Rickard looks at the new judgment, and at how it dealt with these key issues.