JUSTICE IN ZIMBABWE 59 ____________________________________________________________________ farm occupiers from all commercial farms. Several of the occupiers facing eviction had sought to bring a class action in the High Court to oppose their eviction. Mr Justice Chidyausiku granted a provisional order suspending the Supreme Court judgment and allowing the occupiers leave to bring their class action in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court set aside this order on the ground that the Judge President had no power to suspend a Supreme Court decision, and in any event could not grant leave for a class action to be instituted in the Supreme Court.115 This was entirely correct. Only the Supreme Court can set aside its own decisions. In a subsequent public attack on the Supreme Court’s judgment, the Judge President complained that it breached the right of the occupiers to be given a hearing before a decision affecting them was taken. However they could not have been given a hearing because, when the Supreme Court made its original order with the consent of the government, the occupiers had not commenced their class action and there was no way they could have been heard. If they wished to re-open the matter, the correct procedure would have been for them to apply to the Supreme Court to set aside or suspend the carrying out of its order so that they could be allowed to present their arguments on why the order should not be carried out. It is apparent, furthermore, that the Judge President misunderstood the ruling by the Supreme Court in another respect . The Supreme Court ruled that the Judge President could not grant leave for a class action to be instituted in the Supreme Court as a class action can only be instituted in the High Court. In his attack upon the Supreme Court the Judge President complained that the Supreme Court had wrongly ruled that the High Court had no jurisdiction to grant leave to institute a class action. The point is that the High Court only has jurisdiction to grant leave to institute a class action in the High Court.116 The reconstituted Supreme Court changes its mind Following the Supreme Court’s decision in the interdict case there were significant changes in the Court’s membership. First Chief Justice Gubbay was forced into retirement and replaced by the Judge President of the High Court, Mr Justice Chidyausiku. Later, three additional Supreme Court judges were appointed. All these new appointees were widely viewed as being far less independent than the previous members of the Bench and likely to lean heavily in favour of the Executive.