The applicant, through a company (Tiltrac Investments (Pvt) Ltd) in which she held majority shares, purchased a 40-hectare portion of Buckland Estate in September 2002 and commenced farming operations including flower production and horticulture. The farm was subsequently compulsorily acquired by the state for resettlement purposes. Following a challenge to the acquisition, the applicant was issued an offer letter on 26 January 2009 for the whole farm measuring 280 hectares, though she only occupied 40 hectares while indigenous farmers occupied the rest. On 4 November 2011, the Minister withdrew the offer letter and issued a new offer letter to the second respondent (Mahseer Investment) for the same land. The withdrawal letter gave the applicant 7 days to make representations, but she did not respond. In 2025, fourteen years later, the applicant sought judicial review of the withdrawal decision.
1. The application for review is dismissed. 2. The applicant shall pay costs.
Where an administrative authority provides an affected party with notice and a reasonable opportunity to make representations (in this case 7 days), and the party chooses not to respond, they waive their right to later challenge the decision on grounds of procedural unfairness or lack of notice. An applicant challenging an administrative decision must exhaust domestic remedies, including invoking section 6 of the Administrative Justice Act to compel delivery of reasons where these are allegedly inadequate, before seeking judicial review. A court cannot find irrationality in an administrative decision based on alleged failure to consider pertinent factors where the applicant never submitted those factors for consideration when given the opportunity to make representations. Applications for judicial review must be brought within a reasonable time; a delay of fourteen years is unreasonable and fatal to the application.
The court made observations about the practice of applicants seeking costs on the basis that matters should not be opposed, describing this as a "carrot and stick approach" that is improper. The court noted that every litigant has a right to defend themselves, and it was ironic that the applicant complained of being denied the right to be heard while seeking to penalize respondents for exercising their right to oppose the application. The court also noted that the dispute was primarily between the applicant and the first respondent, and it did not need to detain itself with the second respondent's assertions about improvements effected on the land over twelve years, as these were not the subject of a counter-application.
This case is significant in Zimbabwean administrative law for clarifying the requirements for challenging administrative decisions, particularly land offer withdrawals. It emphasizes that: (1) where an administrative authority provides an opportunity to make representations, failure to respond constitutes a waiver of the right to be heard; (2) applicants must exhaust domestic remedies, including seeking reasons under section 6 of the Administrative Justice Act, before approaching courts for review; (3) administrative decisions are presumed valid and challenges must be brought within a reasonable time; and (4) courts will not speculate about what representations might have been made when an applicant fails to utilize the opportunity provided to submit representations. The judgment reinforces the principle that natural justice requires not just the provision of procedural fairness, but also that affected parties must actively engage with those procedures.