On March 27, 2008, a Zimbabwean court issued a suspended sentence to the first white farmer convicted for refusing to vacate his farm after it was declared state property. The farm was seized under a farm seizure program that sought to redistribute white-owned land among native Zimbabwean farmers and was one of the controversial constitutional reforms enacted by President Robert Mugabe in 2005. The law was later declared illegal by the Tribunal of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which found that they were racially motivated, discriminatory and contrary to the SADC treaty to which Zimbabwe is a party. Mugabe's government refused to follow the ruling.

Zimbabwean coat of arms

Learn more about Robert Mugabe, and the legal controversies that have surrounded his rule of Zimbabwe from the JURIST news archive.

Also on This Day at Law:


President Andrew Johnson vetoed citizenship for slaves
Khrushchev becomes USSR leader