Page 31 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 35

Community

a. Restitution (restoration) of that property, or lies in its application

b. Equitable redress.” by often incompetent or
self-serving judges in the
This is further supported by the judgment in District Six courts, some of whom

Committee and Others v. Minister of Rural Development and perpetuate apartheid-era
Others, where the court deemed the government’s 20-year delay biases. Such judges should
in providing restitution to the people of District Six a failure to be retired and replaced with
uphold Section 7, 25(7) and 137 of the Constitution. progressive ones, while
the judiciary’s selection

The same judgment emphasized that both the government processes undergoes reform
and South Africans must cultivate a culture of timely to ensure progressive and
implementation of constitutional mandates. This suggests that competent judges make

the remedying of the dispossessed’s right to restitution must not it to the bench to deliver
be delayed while waiting for compensation to be arranged for the reforms, restitution,
the beneficiaries of dispossession. fairness, equality and justice
in distribution of natural
However, in cases like District Six, the government and courts resources as envisaged by

face challenges in restoring land that remained occupied by the constitution.
beneficiaries of dispossession. This is because the state had
not created adequate legislation to sequestrate or expropriate Where court decisions

stolen land or property acquired through racial discrimination. blatantly diverge from
Consequently, the government often had to seek vacant land to public interest, fairness,
resettle claimants, resulting in delays that sometimes stretch for and equality as they often
decades. do, in order to maintain
apartheid, lawyers and civil

Given these precedents and the Constitution’s stipulation that activists must be encouraged
the manner and timing of compensation should consider various to review the decisions
circumstances, progressive black parties and civil activists in of these neo-apartheid

South Africa, must unite with capable lawyers to creatively courts in multilateral courts
and innovatively use the current Expropriation Act to ensure governed by covenants like
that courts prioritize restitution for the dispossessed over the International Covenant
compensation for beneficiaries of the crime of dispossession. on the Suppression of
The Crime of Apartheid,

Finally, if beneficiaries of dispossession are to be compensated humanitarian law,
after redress is granted to the dispossessed, it must be decolonization law, and the
acknowledged that this is a potential waste of resources—a Native Convention aimed at

political decision with no basis in law. addressing the injustices of
colonialism.
As usual, the greatest challenge to the law in South Africa

ISSUE 35 | MARCH 2025 31