Saai reiterates request to reappoint judges to the SADC Tribunal

The regional court of the SADC Tribunal was closed down in 2012
by the Heads of State of the 14 Southern African Development Community countries

The SADC Tribunal is the international court for the Southern African Development Community.  This court ruled repeatedly against the Mugabe regime’s racist and disastrous land reform programme which resulted in hyperinflation, hunger, extreme poverty and a diaspora of Zimbabweans throughout the SADC region and beyond.

Zimbabwe’s response to the SADC Tribunal’s rulings was open defiance and retaliation.  At its instance, other heads of SADC States – instead of acting against Zimbabwe’s contempt of court (confirmed recurrently by the SADC Tribunal), as they were required to do under binding international law – actively collaborated in what South African courts concluded was a conspiracy to silence the SADC Tribunal.  South Africa’s then-President (Mr Jacob Zuma) was an active collaborator, the Constitutional Court held, in this conspiracy.

The Constitutional Court ordered the removal of South Africa’s signature from the relevant treaty, a purported “protocol” on the SADC Tribunal, which was in truth a cynical document.  The purported protocol defeated access to justice and undermined SADC’s international law obligation to respect human rights, the rule of law and good governance.  As then-Judge President Mlambo (now the Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa) held, the tactic of purporting to adopt such protocol, “instead of supporting the Tribunal”, and “at the instance of the violator of the Tribunal’s orders”, “simply signed away” the Tribunal’s jurisdiction “contrary to the advice of the Ministers of Justice and Attorneys-General”.

The Committee of SADC Ministers of Justice and Attorneys-General had already adopted in 2011 the position that SADC should simply reappoint judges to the SADC Tribunal.  This was to fill the vacancies which Presidents Mugabe and Zuma (and their SADC counterparts) intentionally created by first suspending the operations of the SADC Tribunal, not reappointing new judges, and thereafter signing the protocol which attempted to make the temporary termination of the Tribunal operation permanent in respect of human rights and citizens’ access to the SADC Tribunal.

The Committee of SADC Ministers of Justice and Attorneys-General is accordingly requested by Saai to confirm its position adopted 2011, which was vindicated by judgments by the South African court and other national courts in the SADC region.  Again embarking on what the Constitutional Court described as a cynical “masterplan” and strategy – a charade to sign away the SADC Tribunal’s jurisdiction by purporting to replace or amend the existing treaties and international instruments (as was done in 2014) – would, at best, result in a yet further extension of the unlawful factual situation in frustration of the right of access to justice and the rule of law.

Saai’s correspondence to South Africa’s Minister of Justice, in her capacity as chairperson of the said SADC Committee, requests the Committee to act with consistency according to its previous position, with judgments by the Constitutional Court, and with the Committee’s current position on a comparable court: the SADC Administrative Tribunal, to which the Committee is set to appoint replacement judges.

Both the reappointment of judges to the SADC Administrative Tribunal and the re-operationalisation of the SADC Tribunal itself are on the Committee’s agenda.  The Committee meets on Friday, 5 June 2026, at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

“Expectations are high to see consistency with the Committee’s previous stance on the SADC Tribunal itself, the SADC Administrative Tribunal, and South Africa’s and SADC countries’ approach to other international courts (like the International Court of Justice).  Saai echoes the Constitutional Court’s sentiments that a functional SADC Tribunal vested with jurisdiction to give effect to SADC citizens’ right of access to court, human rights, democracy and the rule of law is essential to contribute positively to the renaissance of Africa, shed its southern region of a development-inhibiting negative image, and coordinate and give impetus to regional development,” says Saai’s Executive Board chairman, Dr Theo de Jager.