By A Correspondent| The High court has stopped the eviction of 800 families that were at the risk of being rendered homeless by government under controversial and opaque circumstances.

High Court Judge Justice Rogers Manyangadze on Wednesday 17 January 2024 stopped the eviction of the 800 families, who reside in Norton in Mashonaland West province, after some former farm workers challenged a directive for their eviction issued by government.

Government had on 11 January 2024 through officials from the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development and the District Administrator for Chegutu, who were accompanied by some Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) officers and officials from the Environmental Management Agency, visited Plot Number 46 at Skea Farm, where they convened a meeting and advised the former farm workers and their families to vacate from the farm within three days.

The officials from the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development and the District Administrator for Chegutu reportedly read a message from their mobile phone handsets indicating that they had been sent to deliver a message from President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Faced with imminent eviction, the former farm employees, who were once employed by Martin Skea, a white commercial farmer, who owned Skea Farm, before the farm was acquired by government during the land grab exercise, engaged Rutendo Muchenje of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, who on 15 January 2024, filed an urgent chamber application at the High Court, seeking to interdict Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Minister Hon. Dr Anxious Masuka, the District Administrator for Chegutu and the Officer Commanding ZRP Norton District from evicting them and also to stop them from demolishing their houses.

In the application, the former farm employees represented by Charles Kungayi, Joshua Kazukamwe, Elias Mandiwanzira, Melody Mbawa, Betty Chapendeka and Patrick Pawandiwa, argued that they were allocated houses by Martin Skea, their erstwhile employer as company accommodation during the time when they were farm workers at the farm and had been in undisturbed possession of the houses to date.

As former employees, they argued that they lived in the company houses located at the farm compound together with other employees and that the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development was aware that they were residing at the farm compound.

Muchenje argued that the former farm workers had been paying dues and rates to the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development and to the District Administrator for Chegutu on an annual basis and the District Administrator for Chegutu and had been accepting the rates, which they have been paying, estimated at about US$3 per hectare.

The former farm employees, who are residents of Ward 14 in Norton in Mashonaland West province, argued that officials from Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, the District Administrator for Chegutu, ZRP and Environmental Management Agency did not serve them with a court order authorising their eviction.

They argued that section 74 of the Constitution states that no person may be evicted from their home or have their home demolished without securing a court order after considering relevant circumstances.

The actions of officials from the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, the District Administrator for Chegutu in seeking to evict them, the former farm employees argued, are a violation of human rights and violate some provisions of the Constitution.

The former farm workers contended that they are of old age and do not have alternative accommodation hence they will be rendered homeless during the current rainy season.

On Wednesday 17 January 2024, Justice Manyangadze barred Hon. Dr Masuka, the District Administrator for Chegutu and the Officer Commanding ZRP Norton District, from evicting the former farm workers without obtaining a court order authorising them to do so.