Zenzele Sibanda v Peter J. Buckle and Others

The applicant filed an urgent chamber application seeking interim relief requiring the respondents to maintain peace and remove their cattle from Blinkbonny Farm. The applicant claimed he was the new owner of the farm based on an offer letter issued in September 2012. However, the farm was initially listed for acquisition but later delisted. In December 2006, the District Lands Committee recommended reversing the acquisition decision. In June 2013, a meeting at the District Administrator's office indicated that Blinkbonny Farm would be returned to the 2nd respondent (Peter Andrew Buckle), and that the applicant would be relocated to another farm. The respondents, who were directors and shareholders of Soundstone Properties (Pvt) Ltd (the registered owner of the farm), had been in occupation since 2012 and made significant improvements to the property. In October 2013, the applicant was allegedly allocated Dandasi Farm in Shangani. In January 2017, the applicant retook occupation of portions of Blinkbonny Farm and placed 22 head of cattle there. On 15 February 2017, the 1st respondent allegedly visited the farm and made threats against the applicant's employees.

• Whether the matter was properly certified as urgent and whether urgency existed
• Whether the legal practitioner properly applied his mind when certifying urgency
• Whether the requirements for a spoliation order were satisfied
• Whether the relief sought was competent, particularly the final order declaring ownership of land vested in the State
• Whether the proper parties were cited, given that Soundstone Properties (Pvt) Ltd was the registered owner but not joined as a party
• Whether the application should be dismissed for lack of urgency and merit

The application was dismissed with costs awarded to the respondents.

1. A legal practitioner who certifies a matter to be urgent must genuinely apply his mind to the averments in the certificate of urgency and ensure that it discloses urgency. 2. An urgent application must stand or fall on the averments contained in the founding affidavit; the court will not allow postponement for the sole purpose of filing an answering affidavit to rebut submissions showing lack of urgency. 3. Urgency which stems from deliberate or careless abstention from action until a deadline approaches is not the type of urgency contemplated by the rules (applying Kuvarega v Kuvarega). 4. For a spoliation order, an applicant must allege and prove that he was in peaceful possession and was despoiled of possession by unlawful means, with sufficient detail as to when and how dispossession occurred. 5. Under the Constitution of Zimbabwe, all agricultural land is vested in the State, and courts cannot grant orders divesting the State of land ownership or declaring private ownership of such land. 6. Rights in respect of land offered under the land reform programme must be enforced through the proper statutory instruments, namely the Land Acquisition Act and the Gazetted Land (Consequential Provisions) Act.

The court observed that an interim order should not have final effect. The court also noted that the applicant sought what amounted to an eviction order, which cannot be obtained by way of an interim order. The court commented that the applicant did not take the court into its confidence by failing to disclose the full background to the dispute, including the 2013 resolution to relocate him to an alternative farm. The court remarked that the scant detail in both the certificate of urgency and the founding affidavit reflected that the legal practitioner would have easily observed that the matter was not urgent had he bothered to apply his mind to it.

This case reinforces important principles in Zimbabwean law regarding urgent applications and the duties of legal practitioners in certifying urgency. It emphasizes that legal practitioners must genuinely apply their minds to the facts before certifying urgency, and that matters cannot be rendered urgent simply because an applicant perceives them to be so. The case also clarifies the limitations on judicial powers regarding land ownership under Zimbabwe's constitutional framework, which vests all agricultural land in the State. It demonstrates that courts will not grant orders that purport to divest the State of land ownership or bypass the statutory frameworks established for land reform. The judgment provides guidance on the requirements for spoliation applications and the need for full and frank disclosure of material facts in urgent applications.