High Court Rejects Zhuwao’s Urgent Court Application Against Kirsty Coventry Over The Seized Farm
Hight court ruled on Robert Zhuwao, a nephew of the late former President Robert Mugabe urgent court application against the Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation Minister Kirsty Coventry over the farm issue on Tuesday.
The ruling follows an application by Zhuwao seeking a spoliation and prohibitory interdict against the minister, which is an order granting him possession of the land he said was in dispute and a ban on the minister using that land.
The high court ruled that Zhuwao never had a claim to subdivision 4 of Cockington Farm that was allocated to, the minister.
The second basis for rejecting the urgent application was that Zhuwao, at present in Zambia, made the affidavit describing his eviction, yet he had not been present, although his farm manager, who lives in the area, was present, but was not invited to make the affidavit nor testify in court.
Zhuwao was allocated subdivision 1 of Cockington Farm in Zvimba, yet Minister Coventry was allocated subdivision 4 on the same Cockington Farm, a quite different area.
The High Court therefore struck the matter off the roll since there could be no dispute between Zhuwao and Minister Coventry.
Zhuwao lost the farm allocated to him in December 2004 after his offer letter was withdrawn last year in March on the basis that he had abandoned it since 2011.
After being notified of the withdrawal of the farm by the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, and Rural Resettlement, Zhuwao was invited to make representations within seven days of the withdrawal.
He submitted his representations in writing in April last year. However, the Government confirmed the withdrawal of the offer letter in September and advised Zhuwao to wind up operations and vacate the farm.
Aggrieved by this result, Zhuwao challenged the propriety of the Minister of Lands’ decision, and that matter, the withdrawal of the offer letter, is pending in courts.
But based on the fact that Zhuwao never had an offer letter for the farm allocated to Minister Coventry, Justice Tawanda Chitapi yesterday struck Zhuwao’s application off the roll with costs as there was no dispute to talk about in this second matter.
In his ruling, Justice Chitapi noted that there was no double allocation of land as Minister Coventry’s offer letter had nothing to do with the land offered to Zhuwao.
“There is therefore no basis for dispute as to who was allocated what piece of land,” he said.
Zhuwao, who claimed to be hospitalized in Zambia, filed a notarized affidavit that he executed in Lusaka on 5 June — narrating the invasion of his farm in the first person yet he was not present.
He stated that the facts he deposed to were the best of his knowledge and belief, true and correct in material respects, but Justice Chitapi found he did not state the basis of such knowledge and belief.
The judge sought an explanation from Zhuwao’s lawyer Mr Jabu Gwatipedza on why he placed hearsay evidence before the court to support the application, yet the farm manager who supposedly witnessed the acts of spoliation and could have filed the affidavit since he had personal knowledge of what took place.
Mr Gwatipedza could not give a satisfactory explanation. The lawyer first stated that the application was hurriedly made and there was no time to record an affidavit from the farm manager.
The judge also asked the lawyer who between Zhuwao and the farm manager was easier to record an affidavit form since Zhuwao was hospitalized in Zambia and the farm manager is less than 100 kilometres away.
In the end, Justice Chitapi found there was no admissible evidence on which Zhuwao’s application was anchored and that it was replete with hearsay evidence hence could not make a strong case that Minister Coventry had committed the acts of lawlessness he complained of.
