Litigation as a Form of Resistance

There are times when suing for one's rights in a court of law, although technically a legal act, can be a form of resistance (see the definition of resistance as defined in this blog). This is particularly so when the powerful interests that are being opposed through such resistive litigation take extra-legal and physically threatening measures to dissuade or otherwise stop the litigation from advancing.

In Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, numerous White farmers are being harassed to vacate their property in favour of a land redistribution scheme which affords little or no compensation to the dispossessed. Undoubtedly, many of such families acquired land during an earlier era of White minority rule and unjust land distribution policies that discriminated against the majority Black population. Yet Mugabe's efforts in redistributing land and dispossessing landowners without compensation is clearly problematic as well.

Some families have initiated litigation to counter Mugabe's efforts to confiscate their land before a tribunal of the Southern African Development Community, a regional organization of which Zimbabwe is a member. Prior to a recently-issued decision, families who initiated the lawsuit were physically attacked and asked to sign a paper promising not to pursue the litigation before the tribunal. They refused and the case continued. The tribunal released a sixty-page decision siding with the farmers and their persistence won out - at least on paper.

The court victory notwithstanding, the Mugabe government has asserted that it has no intention of heeding the tribunal's decision about the illegality of its actions. Nevertheless, the decision of the farmers to pursue the litigation and shine a light on the government's illegal acts was a challenge to the Mugabe government's authority and a patent act of resistance. Although the Zimbabwean government seems to have no intention of obeying the tribunal's decision and halt its land confiscation policy, it also seems clear that the government did not want the litigation to be pursued or have a court decision rendered against it.

Source: Celia W. Dugger, "White Farmers Confront Mugabe in a Legal Battle" New York Times, December 28, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/world/africa/28farmers.html