Published on 03/12/2025
Seventeen years after the landmark Campbell judgement, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal remains shut and its orders against Zimbabwe still ignored, a rights group said.
The November 28, 2007, ruling in Mike Campbell and Others v. The Government of Zimbabwe found that Zimbabwe’s land seizures were unlawful, racially discriminatory, and carried out without due process.
The Tribunal – then the region’s highest court – also ordered the government to pay full and fair compensation to dispossessed farmers by June 2009.
None of the applicants has received compensation, according to SADC Tribunal Rights Watch.
“The judgement is final and binding. It cannot be appealed or changed,” said spokesperson Ben Freeth.
“Zimbabwe is still obligated under the SADC Treaty and international law to comply.”
After the ruling, a follow-up case to compel payment was filed but never heard. The late former president Robert Mugabe’s government removed Tribunal judges and effectively shut down the court in 2011, rendering it dysfunctional.
The Tribunal can be revived once SADC member states appoint new judges, but there appears to be no appetite from member states to do so.
Freeth marked the 17th anniversary of the Campbell judgement by renewing calls for SADC to act.
“It means that none of the 400 million people in the region have access to the Tribunal when justice fails them in their own countries,” he said.
Two years ago, Freeth undertook a 2,000km horse-back “Long Ride for Justice” from the Campbell family’s Mount Carmel farm in Chegutu to the Tribunal’s former seat in Windhoek, Namibia, to highlight the court’s continued closure.
SADC leaders were expected to consider steps toward reconstituting the Tribunal at their August 2025 summit, but no progress has been announced.
The United States’ Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) of 2018, now repealed, cited compliance with the Campbell ruling as a benchmark for governance reforms.
“Zimbabwe remains in breach of treaty law, and the rule of law is in abeyance,” Freeth said.
“We call on the government to comply with the judgement and on the SADC secretariat to appoint judges so that the house of justice can function again.”
