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North Gauteng High Court Judgment - Government of Zimbabwe vs Fick, Etheredge, Campbell & the President of South Africa
June 06, 2011

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Case No: 47954/2010
72184/2010
77881/2009

In the matter between:

Government of the Republic of Zimbabwe: Applicant

and

Louis Karel Fick: First Respondent
Richard Thomas Etheredge: Second Respondent
William Michael Campbell: Third Respondent
The President of the Republic of South Africa: Fourth Respondent

Judgment

R D Claassen J

By the order of this Court three cases involving the same parties, and emanating from the same issues between them, were consolidated and are now being heard together.

Background

In 2007, seventy odd white commercial farmers in the Republic of Zimbabwe, including the present Respondents, approached the South African Development Community ("SADC") Tribunal ("Tribunal") for a ruling that the dispossession of their farms by the Applicant, without compensation, is unlawful, and asking the Tribunal to order the Applicant to protect their rights. The order was granted. The Applicant refused to adhere to the orders and the Respondents brought two applications to the Tribunal asking it to find the Applicant in contempt of Court. Again these applications succeeded. The Tribunal thereafter made a ruling that the taxed costs of the two contempt applications were reasonable and madean order in favour of the Respondents against the Applicant for those costs (R112 780.13 and USD 5,816.47, respectively) (The Third Respondent died a day or two before the hearing as a result of the assaults sustained during his eviction from his farm. No substitution of an executor was sought because the other Respondents still had locus standi to continue with the hearing and the Applicant did not object thereto).

Respondents then wanted to make those costs orders enforceable as against the Applicant here in RSA. It was obvious that Applicant was not going to pay because it denied the Tribunal's jurisdiction over it, in any way or form. The Respondents then first applied for an order of edictal citation allowing them to serve the notice of motion for the registration of the orders in South Africa, via their attorney, on the Applicant in Harare, at:

3.1 The offices of the Attorney General in Harare, Zimbabwe
3.2 The administrative head off ice of the Applicant's Minister of Justice in Harare

After full argument inter alia on the question of jurisdiction of this Court in the matter, Tuchten AJ (as he then was) gave the order. It was subsequently so served on Applicant, and the matter was set down for hearing on the 25th February 2010, before Rabie J.

Applicant, subsequent to the service of the edictal citation order, entered an appearance to defend, but withdrew it afterwards. Again, the issue of jurisdiction was fully canvassed in the argument before Court (heads of argument were filed by Mr Gauntlett SC, who also now appears for the Respondents together with a junior, Mr Pelser.) It must be noted that when the notice of intention to defend was withdrawn, no reasons were given. Rabie J then granted the application on the 25th February 2010 on an unopposed basis.

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