Pretoria – Government lawyers were yesterday studying a ruling by the High Court in Johannesburg compelling the state to compensate a Free State farmer for property seized from him in Zimbabwe.

“(We’ve) taken note of the judgment. The government’s legal advisers are applying their minds on the matter and will advise government on the appropriate course of action to pursue,” said International Relations Department spokesman Saul Molobi.

On Friday, the Johannesburg High Court ordered the government to compensate Crawford von Abo after several of his farms in Zimbabwe were seized under that government’s land reform programme.

The South African government may be forced to pay up to R500-million.

His lawyer, Ernst Penzhorn, was quoted as saying the ruling proved the South African judicial system was working.

Last year, the Constitutional Court declined to confirm an order that would have made the president responsible for Von Abo’s struggle to get diplomatic protection from Zimbabwe’s land seizures.

Like many other land owners, he was not compensated for his losses and, after exhausting his legal options in Zimbabwe, turned to the South African government for diplomatic protection. He had been trying to get the South African government to intervene for the past eight years.

He eventually took the government of South Africa, the president, the ministers of international relations, trade and industry, justice and constitutional development to court, arguing that diplomatic protection was his constitutional right and he was not getting it.

He won the case in the Pretoria High Court and asked the Constitutional Court to confirm it. – Sapa