Harare, September 30, 2009 – Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa claims a Council of Ministers, chaired by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, endorsed Zimbabwe’s decision to pull out of the Sadc Tribunal until the regional court’s mandate has been reviewed and regularised in line with the norms of international law, state-owned Herald said on Wednesday.

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However, Tsvangirai was recently quoted saying Minister Chinamasa was misdirecting the nation through making unilateral decisions without cabinet authority. Legal experts have also said it is not legally possible for Zimbabwe to withdraw from the Tribunal unless it pulls out of SADC totally.

The paper said the council of Ministers met last Thursday in Harare and Chinamasa briefed them on the status of the regional court based in Windhoek, Namibia.

The decision by Zimbabwe to pull out of the Sadc Tribunal followed the ruling by the regional court in favour of a group of white commercial farmers who challenged the acquisition of the farms they held by the State for resettlement purposes. The ruling was viewed as an attempt to reverse the revolutionary land reform programme and was criticised for protecting the interests of a white minority.

In November last year, the SADC Tribunal ruled that farmers whose land was seized must be compensated by the government. But Chinamasa said the SADC Tribunal ruling would not be enforced and that Harare had pulled out of the Tribunal.

“The Council of Ministers meeting resolved in line with the Sadc Summit resolution made in Kinshasa that the mandate of the tribunal needs to be reviewed to clarify its jurisdiction and the issues which it will adjudicate upon,” the paper quoted Chinamasa on Wednesday. “It was also agreed that the review should look at the persons or entities over which it will exercise that jurisdiction and the Tribunal’s relationship to national courts such as our Supreme Court as well as determining which cases it can look at as a court of first instance and which cases it can adjudicate upon only after exhaustion of domestic remedies.”

Minister Chinamasa said the Council of Ministers’ meeting was satisfied that the tribunal was not yet operational because the protocol establishing it had not yet been ratified by the requisite two-thirds of the regional bloc’s membership as per the conditions set in the 1992 Sadc Treaty.

“The meeting was satisfied that the tribunal was not yet operational because the protocol giving it powers, functions and parameters of jurisdiction and the amendment have not yet been ratified by the requisite two-thirds membership of Sadc as required by the treaty and the protocol itself.

“This means that any decisions that the Tribunal took are not binding on Zimbabwe because it is not yet legally subsisting.

“Zimbabwe is among those countries which have not yet ratified and therefore is not yet even a State party to the protocol,” he said.

To date, only Namibia, Botswana, Malawi, Mauritius and Lesotho have ratified the protocol.

Radio VOP