DISTRIBUTED BY VERITAS TRUST Tel: [263] [4] 794478 Fax & Messages [263] [4] 793592 E-mail: veritas@mango.zw Veritas makes every effort to ensure the provision of reliable information, but cannot take legal responsibility for information supplied. Judgment No. SC 41 /18 Civil Appeal No. SC 326/14 appellant who is a lessee by virtue of her having been the respondent’s spouse at the time the contract of lease was signed. The distribution of the assets of the parties through the consent paper did not take into consideration the parties’ interests in the value of the benefits attached to the farm. The value of the leased farm to the parties should be considered in distributing their assets to ensure that the respondent does not benefit unjustly at the expense of the appellant. In terms of the provisions of the Matrimonial Causes Act, the court must endeavour, as far as is reasonable and practicable and, having regard to their conduct, is just to do so, to place the spouses and children in the position they would have been had a normal marriage relationship continued between the spouses. The court should therefore take into consideration the position the parties would have been in if they had continued farming on the leased farm, if their marriage had not irretrievably broken down. The lease constitutes part of the assets of the spouses and should have been taken into consideration in terms of s 7 (1)(a) of the Matrimonial Causes Act which provides as follows: “7 Division of assets and maintenance orders (1) Subject to this section, in granting a decree of divorce, judicial separation or nullity of marriage, or at any time thereafter, an appropriate court may make an order with regard to— (a) the division, apportionment or distribution of the assets of the spouses, including an order that any asset be transferred from one spouse to the other.” 10