JUSTICE IN ZIMBABWE 65 ____________________________________________________________________ about what was happening on the ground. This evidence established that land resettlement continued to be carried out in a chaotic fashion, that violence against commercial farmers and farm workers was continuing and that, generally, the police were doing very little to prevent this violence or to intervene when such violence occurred. The majority of the court ducked the issue of what was happening in practice by declaring that the manner of implementation of laws was a matter of policy that fell within the province of the executive and not of the courts. Nonetheless, contrary to the evidence, it blithely declared that the government had taken adequate steps to restore the rule of law on the farms. The decision by the majority that the rule of law had been “restored” by legalising what had been done completely disregards the essence of the rule of law concept. Retrospective validation of unlawful acts cannot be regarded as compliance with the rule of law. In any event, the Rural Land Occupiers (Protection from Eviction) Act did not purport to legalise the occupations; it merely protected the occupiers from legal action. By implication the Act accepted that the occupations were unlawful and that the occupiers were otherwise subject to criminal and civil action. The majority also found that the commercial farmers’ rights under various sections of the Constitution had not been violated because a farmer whose farm had been the subject of an order under s 8 of the Land Acquisition Act was no longer the owner but merely an occupier. Even if this finding is correct, it ignores completely the rights of those numerous commercial farmers whose farms were not the subject of a s 8 order and who remained the owners of their farms. There can be no question but that the rights of those farmers were being breached. The Court also ignored the question of whether a s 8 order can be issued at all before the Administrative Court has, in terms of s 7 of the Land Acquisition Act, confirmed the acquisition. As s 8 of the Act is subject to s 7, an order under s 8 arguably cannot be issued until the Administrative Court has confirmed the acquisition. More generally, the majority analysed the applicable legislation — the Rural Land Occupiers (Protection from Eviction) Act, the Land Acquisition Act and the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) (Land Acquisition) (No 2) Regulations, 2001 — without paying sufficient regard to its cumulative effect. Taken together, the