HIGH Court judge Justice Susan Mavangira yesterday threw a lifeline to at least 900 illegal settlers at Arnold Farm 10 in Mazowe after he ordered government to stop evicting them until it had identified a suitable place to resettle them.
BY CHARLES LAITON SENIOR COURT REPORTER
Justice Mavangira also ordered the State to allow the families to harvest their crops unhindered over the next six months.
The farm occupants, some of whose properties were razed down in a police blitz early last month, made an urgent chamber application seeking to bar the law enforcement agents from kicking them out of the farm without giving them time to prepare to move out.
Part of the order read: “Pending expiry of the six-month period from April 1 2014, respondents (Lands, Home Affairs ministers and police) and anyone acting through them be and is hereby interdicted from evicting and demolishing the houses for the applicants and interfering with their farming activities.”
The farmers were represented by Advocate Tonderai Bhatasara and instructing attorney Gift Mtisi.
