The case mounted by South African and Zimbabwean farmers who sued the government for R2 billion, claiming that decisions made by former President Jacob Zuma led to them being unable to claim compensation for losing farms to Zimbabwe’s expropriation programme, has been dismissed by the Constitutional Court.
The farmers claim Zuma’s decisions at a 2014 Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit led to their being unable to claim compensation for losing farms to Zimbabwe’s expropriation programme.
In 2009, the SADC tribunal ruled in the farmers’ favour and ordered the Zimbabwean government to pay compensation. However, in 2014 the tribunal’s powers were ‘deliberately extinguished by joint action, in which then-president [Jacob] Zuma was a co-perpetrator’.
In 2018, the Constitutional Court declared Zuma’s part in gutting the tribunal as unconstitutional. The court at the time said Zimbabwe’s plan to strip the tribunal of much of its power ‘…had a willing ally in South Africa, as represented by our president’.
After this ruling, the farmers instituted proceedings against the office of president and the government for damages amounting to about R2bn.
The government argued that Zuma’s conduct was too ‘remote’ from the farmers’ losses and started too late: after the three years South African law allows to sue for damages.
The apex court held that the farmers should have started their proceedings when they first knew of Zuma’s conduct in 2014. The farmers argued they could start proceedings only after the apex court’s 2018 ruling, but the apex court disagreed.
The ConCourt said there was nothing in the 2018 application to suggest to the President that he was the subject of any delictual claim.
However, due to the importance of the case, none of the state’s costs were ordered against the farmers.