Redefining “Property”: The Constitutional Battle over Land Redistribution in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This article is about the appropriate role of the judiciary in the constitutional debate over land redistribution in Zimbabwe. The possession of land in Zimbabwe has been the most volatile political issue since the war for independence. White ownership of the most productive land fuelled the war against Rhodesia. A constitutional settlement in 1979 resulted in a cease-fire, but the Declaration of Rights prohibited the new government from acquiring land for resettlement purposes except on a “willing seller, willing buyer” basis. With the expiration of the decade-long entrenchment of the Declaration of Rights in 1990, President Robert Mugabe declared his intention to honour a promise made eleven years before: to resettle peasant farmers on previously white-owned land. Since then, Parliament has amended the Constitution of Zimbabwe three times to allow the state to acquire property for resettlement and to give Parliament the power to fix the amount of compensation without judicial review.