ROBERT MUGABE’S SIEGE ON JUSTICE: THE DEMISE OF THE SADC TRIBUNAL AND SOUTH AFRICA’S JUDICIAL REPARATIONS FOR ZIMBABWEANS

Abstract

This research piece investigates how Zimbabwe’s government was successful in rendering a regional court obsolete, with the implicit approval of South Africa. It also tackles how South Africa’s judiciary stepped in to fill the resulting jurisdictional void by enforcing a distinctively detrimental decision on Robert Mugabe’s regime on a particularly controversial subject for both countries: namely, land restitution. In achieving the above, South Africa’s judicial branch managed to repair some of its executive’s missteps in handling Zimbabwe’s descent to authoritarianism — one brimming with human rights infringements and attacks on the rule of law. The article lies at the intersection of two humanities: political science and law, drawing themes and research methods from each. Still, it is not limited to practitioners from the said fields, being specifically constructed to be accessible to any interested reader.