THE High Court sitting in Chinhoyi, Mashonaland West province, has stopped the possible eviction of villagers from their ancestral land in Hurungwe district.
The villagers, represented by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), successfully took legal action from arbitrary displacement by the Hurungwe Rural District Council.
The villagers, who include village head Satchmore Chigumbura residing in Nyamadzawo village, which is also known as Zinyama village in Magunje, had on August 16 been served with letters written by Hurungwe RDC.
They were advised that Zinyama village was set aside for undisclosed “special purposes” and for development in terms of section 10(1) (1) of the Communal Lands Act.
The letter also instructed the villagers to demolish their homesteads by September 30, failing which the local authority would invoke the “necessary instruments of law to force compliance”.
This prompted Chigumbura and some of his subjects, who include Nesbert Chinanzvavana and Emmanuel Chinanzvavana, to engage Tinashe Chinopfukutwa and Kelvin Kabaya of ZLHR on September 24 this year to file an urgent chamber application at Chinhoyi High Court seeking an interdict to stop Hurungwe RDC from evicting the villagers.
The villagers argued that the evictions would be unlawful, illegal and in contravention of section 74 of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom from arbitrary eviction.
In the application, the villagers argued that Hurungwe RDC can only evict people from their properties after obtaining a court order authorising the evictions and demolition of people’s homesteads.
The villagers further submitted that the council had not served them with any court process or court order authorising it to demolish or evict them from their homesteads by September 30.
They argued that no statutory instrument had been gazetted indicating that Zinyama village had been set aside for development purposes as required by the law in terms of section 10(3) of the Communal Lands Act.
They further submitted that Hurungwe RDC is duty bound by section 12 of the Communal Lands Act to provide them with alternative land and if no alternative land is available, the local authority should negotiate and agree with them to compensate them.
According to the villagers, Hurungwe RDC had not offered them any alternative land and had not engaged them regarding compensation for the loss of their communal land.
On October 2 this year, Chinhoyi High Court judge Justice Philda Muzofa ordered Hurungwe RDC not to evict the villagers from their communal land and communal homes in Zinyama village and not to demolish their homesteads without following the due process of the law.