Zuma suggests alternative to SADC tribunal

via Zuma suggests alternative to SADC tribunal – Times LIVE Sapa | 06 November, 2013

Zuma told the National Assembly during presidential question time that legal advisers were considering how to establish a new framework for resolving disputes within the 15-nation Southern African Development Community bloc.

“That process is being looked at by legal people because we believe it is a necessary instrument… I don’t think we could live without [it],” he said in response to a question from the Democratic Alliance.

“So there is no doubt that such an instrument would be essential and necessary. The one that got dismantled was because of the specific objection that one country made.”

Zuma has been strongly criticised for allowing objections from his Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe to put the tribunal out of operation.

After the tribunal found that land seizure without compensation in Zimbabwe was racist, Mugabe rejected its rulings and jurisdiction and raised his objections at SADC summits.

In 2010, a SADC summit suspended the tribunal pending a probe into its mandate. In 2012, it was decided at another summit that the tribunal could no longer try complaints by SADC citizens against their own governments.

The tribunal had been established by SADC leaders, including Mugabe, to ensure that member states adhered to the bloc’s treaty. It obliges them to act in accordance with human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.

 

COMMENTS

WORDPRESS: 17
  • comment-avatar
    tttaps3 11 years ago

    MR president, sir, what happens if another country at some point objects to the new tribunal

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    William Doctor 11 years ago

    So one dictator complains, and the whole process was shut down? Wow – the future is bright.

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    Mugabe objected to e regional tribunal ruling and it was disbanded. He threatened to pull out of sadc and e block legitimized his sham re-election.

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    msizeni silwelani 11 years ago

    A bloc that includes Zanu pf, Anc, Frelimo and another from Namibia, legal brains led by Mogeong Mogeong, Chidyausiku, with Chinamasa/Radebe holding the strings, we are in for a high jump, hurdle on the ground.

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    Shebah 11 years ago

    As long as that tribunal does not attempt to reverse our land reform and try to over ride other nation’s laws its welcome. The tribunal should also address our sanctions issue and the refusal by Britain to compensate the former white farmer

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      William Doctor 11 years ago

      @ Shebah

      No one wants the land back. It’s f**ked now anyway. We want, and will get compensation – even if it takes us 100 years. We will fight hard because now we have nothing to lose. You and your racist comrades made enemies of us – and that’s fine – now we will fight [for compensation] with everything that we have – and we have the West behind us.

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        farai 11 years ago

        Mr William Doctor, expect us to fight back with equal or greater force. The masses are behind us, this time we will take your wives and your female children. I would think seriously before I provoked a fight I can’t win.

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          Pastor 11 years ago

          Men try to forget that there is such a thing as Divine wrath. The realization of it makes them uneasy, so they endeavor to banish all thought of it. At times they are terrified at the bare mention of God’s wrath, hence their anxiety to dismiss the subject from their minds. Others try to believe there is no such thing. They argue that God is loving and merciful, and therefore God’s Anger is merely a bogey with which to frighten naughty children. But how do we know that God is Loving and Merciful? The heathen do not believe that He is. Nor does Nature clearly and uniformly reveal the fact. The answer is, we know God to be such, because His Word so affirms. Yes, and the same Bible which tells of God’s Mercy speaks of His Wrath, and as a matter of fact, refers more frequently (much more so) to His anger than it does to His love.

          The fact of God’s Wrath is clearly revealed in the Scriptures. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Rom. 1:18). “Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience” (Eph. 5:6). In these, and in other passages too numerous to mention, the fact of the Divine wrath is affirmed.

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    Jrr56 11 years ago

    SADC tribunal, ICC and many other organisations. Why join them when you will not play by their rules.

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    Shebah 11 years ago

    Jrr56 we did not join ICC and we have rejected SADC Tribunal

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    dscot 11 years ago

    Farai that is typical of your type of “freedom fighter”. The only people you have the courage to fight are, by your own admission, women and children. How courageous of you.

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    farai 11 years ago

    Comprehension is important dscot, I said take not fight. Historically they are spoils of war so be very careful about continuing this resistance against a historical wrong.

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    dscot 11 years ago

    Farai, Well said!!! Take not fight. What a true, heroic freedom fighter you would make. Mugabe would be truly proud of you. However the rest of the world would class you somewhat differently.

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    farai 11 years ago

    dscot, typical of ” The Lost Children of the Empire!” You will sue us in your courts, using your laws and your judges to make claim on what is ours. If that fails you ask your kin to impose sanctions on us and implore them to attack us militarily for that which is ours but you consider yours. If you acquired these assets using laws that prevailed when you ruled then, we repossess them now on the basis of the laws prevailing now. How do you reconcile these contradictions in your conscience if you have one?

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    WAKE-UP 11 years ago

    There are two issues on the land , The land itself Yes a Brittish issue ,The improvements that is a Zimbabwean issue ,
    if Zimbabwe paid for the improvements , in Zim$ at the time then money would have flowed in , but it didn’t .
    it was a policy off “WE WILL SHOW YOU WHAT WE CAN DO” ZANU-PF destroyed the means off production, the land is still just lying there, and the Chinese are now using it , just look at Chinhoyi – Lions Den

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    farai 11 years ago

    Rather the Chinese!