CARMEL RICKARD: Zim land invaders out in the cold
In an ironic twist, Zimbabwe’s highest court has found against a group that occupied land in the 2000s, stating there is no ‘fundamental’ right to housing
Given the legal and physical fighting over land and dispossession in Zimbabwe, it’s truly ironic that there is no overt constitutional right to shelter. That lack was brought home in a recent judgment of the Supreme Court, after it was asked to overturn a lower court decision against people in informal settlements outside Harare.
The group had "taken" a farm in 2000, at the "height of the land reform programme", as the court put it. A few years later, in 2005, all their structures were demolished by a government operation aimed at "clearing slums". The land where they were living was then "acquired by the state" and offered to developer Leengate...
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