A dark cloud or the promise of rain: Section 25 and the fate of land restitution in South Africa
Posted: 15 July, 2020 Filed under: Ross Booth | Tags: 1913 Land Act, amendment to section 25, ANC, costly lawsuits, COVID-19, expropriation of land without compensation, inequality in land ownership, Joint Constitutional Review Committee, Joint CRC, land, Land reform, land reformation, land restitution, lockdown, property, property ownership, Section 25, South Africa Leave a comment
Author: Ross Booth
Third year LLB student, University of KwaZulu-Natal
In recent years, there have been growing calls for land reformation and a fairer distribution of property in South Africa. Many have called for what is known as the expropriation of land without compensation, while others view this as an extremely dangerous and radical procedure. Despite the differences of opinion, we are currently observing what could become one of the most significant changes to land reform in the history of SA’s democracy. Seemingly given the backseat in light of our current struggle against the COVID-19 pandemic, an amendment to section 25 of our Constitution is on the cards and could result in a variety of changes to the current state of land restitution.
As it stands, section 25 is a far-reaching provision of the Constitution that deals with security of tenure, property rights, and restitution for those previously discriminated against under colonial and Apartheid land practices. Section 25(1) begins by offering some assurance to property owners by stating:
“No one may be deprived of property except in terms of law of general application, and no law may permit arbitrary deprivation of property.”
Apartheid, gender and property relations in South Africa: Some reflections from Rahube v Rahube & Others
Posted: 20 August, 2018 Filed under: Kennedy Kariseb, Nimrod Muhumuza | Tags: apartheid-era laws, black women, customary law, Group Areas Act, Land reform, ownership, post-apartheid, property ownership, Rahube judgment, Rahube v Rahube & Others, South Africa Leave a commentAuthors: Kennedy Kariseb & Nimrod Muhumuza
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| Kennedy Kariseb | Nimrod Muhumuza |
Land reform is a litmus test for how far post-apartheid democratic South Africa is willing to go to redress its abhorrent racist and sexist history. There have been several attempts to reconcile colonial and apartheid-era laws with their concomitant rights and obligations in the new democratic dispensation, epitomised by the transformative 1996 Constitution. The latest proposal is to expropriate land without compensation which is currently undergoing public consultation. However, scant attention has been paid to the gendered land relations that have excluded women from owning land in their own name.
The recent judgment of Kollapen J in Rahube v Rahube & Others,[1] is one such case that indicates the difficulty of reconciling the impact of a skewed racial, gendered history in a new democratic dispensation premised in a supposedly transformative constitutional regime.[2] The Rahube judgment is another (rather unfortunate) reminder of the subordinate position that women occupy in South Africa, as in most parts of Africa, reminding us that inasmuch as land and property relations in South Africa were racially anchored, they were, (and still are) thoroughly gendered. This is because for the most part, colonial and apartheid laws and practices limited, and at worst excluded women from accessing and controlling resources such as property, including land.[3]
AfricLaw 