Zimbabwe Rule of Law Journal |181 Thirdly, constitutionally, the President can be held accountable for any conduct where he fails to uphold, defend, obey and respect the constitution, and for any wilful violation or serious misconduct. Fourthly, the judgment demonstrated that whether or not the President and Parliament had acted in bad or good faith was irrelevant because the courts’ enquiry into whether any constitutional obligations had been breached was an objective assessment which was not dependant on the motive of any of the actors. Finally, the rule of law requires that the different constitutional arms of government − especially the executive, legislative and judiciary − function in accordance with the principle of separation of powers which must be observed and respected. When this rule of law is functional it protects, ensures and enforces the constitutional values of transparency and accountability of government officials including the executive. The principle of upholding the rule of law and separation of powers was alluded to in the matter between Commissioner of Police v Commercial Farmers’ Union41 relating to a court order obtained by the Respondent which had been issued by consent and which, among other things, declared the land invasions of 2000 to be unlawful and required the police within seventy two hours of the issue of the order to inform the invaders that the invasions were unlawful and to remove them if they did not leave the farms. The order also required the police to disregard any executive instructions to the contrary. However, six days after the order was issued, the applicant applied to the court to delete the paragraphs of the court order requiring the police to disregard contrary instructions from the executive and requiring the police to evict the invaders. The court held that a court order must be obeyed until it is set aside and that the rule of law meant that everyone must be “subject to a shared set of rules that are applied universally and which deal 41 2000 (1) ZLR 503 (HC) 2000 (1) ZLR p503