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A judgment of the African Court has brought the promise of justice to a Malawian family, victim of the country’s one-party, undemocratic and often brutal past, and that has been unable to obtain redress through Malawi’s own courts.

As South Africa moves towards more stringent laws to allow expropriation of property without compensation, cases in other parts of the region show the pitfalls of expropriation even where compensation is paid. A new case from Zambia’s apex court concerns land expropriated from a farmer, ostensibly for development in the public interest. It turned out, however, that fraud was involved and that after a long period in which nothing was done with the land, it was sold off – at one stage for the development of a luxury hotel and golf course.