them. They were told to remove all their belongings and wait by the roadside as vehicles were to be provided to take them to a farm outside Harare. The police then started to indiscriminately demolish the members’ houses and convenience rooms with picks, hammers, and iron rods. In some instances, the police razed to the ground entire buildings by setting them on fire. This housing co-operative was established by war veterans. The Ministry of Local Government had allocated stands to the co-operative in April 2005, and had thereafter entered into lease agreements with members of the cooperative. The leases, which were valid for six years, provided that the stand holders had to erect buildings that met certain specifications on the stands during the currency of the lease. The lease further provided that such buildings had to comply with the relevant local authority laws and the plans and specifications of these buildings had to be approved in writing by the City of Harare. Lessees were not permitted to occupy stands until the buildings had been erected to the satisfaction of the lessor. The members sought a court order ejecting the police from their stands and allowing the members to return to their stands, and barring the police from destroying their property, or interfering with their possession of their stands. The members had breached the lease by erecting buildings and occupying them without seeking approval of their building plans from the City of Harare. On 24 May 2005, the City of Harare had through the newspaper issued an enforcement order in terms of s 32 of the Regional Town and Country Planning Act. This order required all persons in the Greater Harare area who had erected illegal structures to cease to use those structures, apply for regularisation of their position in terms of the Act, or to demolish all structures erected without approved plans. It was clearly stated in the notice that the enforcement order would “come into operation on 20th June 2005”. Lawyers representing them admitted that the members of the co-operative had breached the lease, but argued that the manner in which the breach of the lease had been dealt with was illegal. The court found that there had been proper service on the members of the co-operative of the order through the newspaper notice, and found further that the action taken by the police was lawful, as they were acting in terms of an enforcement order. At no stage did the judge allude to the fact that, contrary to the notice that the enforcement order was only to come into effect on 20 June, the police had given the members less than 24 hours notice. The judge said that he agreed with the submission of legal counsel representing the Minister of Local Government that “public policy considerations far outweighed the interests of a few who had contravened the law for that matter.” He went on to say the following: “It would be naïve for me to conclude this judgment without mentioning the fact that the action taken by the respondents, however, has caused untold suffering to a number of people. I am told by the applicant that a lot of people had obviously been displaced and appear to have nowhere to go. Many have been sleeping in the open and in the cold weather. Many school going children were not going to school. It is my considered view that, notwithstanding the fact that the action taken and the manner in which it was taken was lawful, hardships which have befallen the affected people would have been avoided by giving adequate notice to the affected people to relocate and re-establish themselves. A few days’ notice was, in my view, not adequate.”