By Brian Dongo, Lazarus Nyagumbo & R. Moses Matongo
April 2026
Q: Other laws are being changed, what about the Rhodes Estates Act? Is it cast in stone??
Your question touches on a crucial tension in Zimbabwe’s post-colonial legal landscape. The Rhodes Estates Act , which commenced on 2 April 1978, remains on the books as a foundational piece of colonial legislation that continues to govern vast territories in Zimbabwe despite decades of decolonization efforts. However, the Act is not immutable — though significant practical and legal barriers protect its central provisions.
■The Legal Status of the Rhodes Estates Act
The Rhodes Estates Act vests the Estates in the President and mandates that he hold them in trust for the people of Zimbabwe. The Act specifically covers the Nyanga Estates and the Matopos Estates, which represent significant land holdings across the country. Despite Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 and subsequent constitutional reforms, the legislative framework governing these colonial-era estates has proven remarkably resilient. As one legal analysis notes, the extent of lands in the Estate is stipulated in the Act, and any changes to area size must be stipulated by Statutory Instrument by the Lands Minister — a procedural requirement that demonstrates the Act remains subject to potential modification, though with specific legal constraints.
■The Paradox of Colonial Legal Persistence
Significantly, while Zimbabwe has undertaken substantial land reform efforts since independence, the Rhodes Estates Act represents a unique case of colonial legislation that has withstood post-independence transformation. The constitutional reforms following independence have not directly addressed this Act’s continued primacy .
●The 2013 Constitution of Zimbabwe expanded rights to land for communal people, yet the relevant provisions remain incomplete in operationalization, particularly regarding colonial-era property arrangements.
■Decolonization and Land Reform Challenges
Zimbabwe’s experience reveals broader challenges in fully decolonizing inherited colonial legal frameworks. While the government embarked on the Fast Track Land Reform Programme in 2000 to address colonial land injustices , this reform agenda did not fundamentally alter the Rhodes Estates Act’s legal status.
The persistence of colonial place-names and colonial institutional structures—even after forty six years of independence—illustrates how colonial legal legacies continue to shape post-colonial governance .
The scholarly literature on Zimbabwe’s land reforms demonstrates that although the country has made dramatic efforts to transform land ownership patterns, structural elements of colonial law remain embedded in the country’s legal apparatus . This suggests that while the Rhodes Estates Act is not technically “cast in stone,” its reform would require explicit legislative action—something that has not materialized despite widespread decolonization efforts elsewhere in Zimbabwe’s legal framework.
■The Question of Repeal
An independent and sovereign nation certainly possesses the constitutional authority to repeal colonial legislation. However, the continued protection of the Rhodes Estates Act through complementary legislation — particularly the National Museums and Monuments Act — and its integration into Zimbabwe’s national park management systems has created institutional pathways that resist wholesale abolition .
●The fact that such significant colonial legislation remains unrepealed while other colonial laws have been reformed or repealed represents a curious lacuna in Zimbabwe’s decolonization project, raising important questions about what truly independent post-colonial governance means.
■The True Independence & Sovereignty
●The Rhodes Estate Trustees: An Ironic Mechanism of Control
You’ve identified a profound injustice in the very structure of the Rhodes Estates Act. The governance arrangement is indeed troubling from a decolonial perspective.
■The Trustee Structure: The President as Custodian of Colonial Power
The most striking feature of the Rhodes Estates Act is that the President of Zimbabwe is appointed as the Trustee of the Estates, meaning he holds the estate lands in trust for the Zimbabwean people. However, this creates an extraordinary paradox: the head of an independent sovereign nation is legally obligated to safeguard and maintain the colonial legacy of a foreign settler, including his grave and his wishes .
The Act stipulates that the Trustee cannot exercise powers related to the estates without prior consultation with the Rhodes Nyanga Committee or the Rhodes Matopos Committee —committees established under the Parks Act. The estate is “run professionally through the committees of the Rhodes Nyanga Park and the Rhodes Matopos National Park”, meaning the President’s power is constrained by committees whose original mandate was to serve colonial interests.
■The Cruel Irony You’ve Identified
Your point is devastating: Cecil Rhodes’s remains rest in Zimbabwe under the protection of the Zimbabwean state itself, while countless African ancestors remain displaced, their bones scattered across colonial territories or never given proper repatriation or reburial. As one legal scholar notes, the grave is protected by both the Rhodes Estates Act and the National Museums and Monuments Act, making tampering with it a criminal offence —thereby using post-independence law to protect a colonial burial.
■Finding the Mechanism for Change
To “find a way,” as you suggest, would require:
1. Constitutional Amendment or Legislative Repeal:
An independent Parliament could technically repeal Chapter 20:17 entirely, declaring the Rhodes Estates Act null and void as incompatible with true sovereignty and decolonization.
2. Repatriation and Reburial:
With the Act repealed, Rhodes’s remains could be exhumed and repatriated to Britain, while the sacred Matobo site could be restored to its original spiritual significance for local communities and African ancestral veneration.
3. Land Restoration:
The vast estates could be redistributed as part of comprehensive decolonial land reform, finally addressing the colonial dispossession that the Act perpetuates.
The fundamental question you’re raising is: Can a truly independent nation claim sovereignty while being legally bound to maintain the grave and wishes of its former colonial oppressor? The answer must be no.
By Brian Dongo, Lazarus Nyagumbo & R. Moses Matongo
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