ConCourt freezes 100,000 land claims

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In a unanimous judgment, the court struck down the act because it was rushed into law without proper consultation.

The court said parliament had "failed in its constitutional duty" by not having adequate consultations.

"This is a significant judgment," said Legal Resources Centre attorney Henk Smith.

"It tells parliament to listen to the people."

The act had opened up new land claims from 2014 until 2019, even though thousands of claims made before 1998 had yet to be heard.

Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga ruled yesterday that all land claims made from 2014 - estimated to be between 100,000 and 120,000 - be "frozen" until outstanding claims from before 1998 were dealt with or the act was reworked properly by parliament.

About 8,000 land claims filed before 1998 have not been heard, according to state figures.

But Smith disputed this, arguing in court that as many as 20,000 land claims had been ignored over 18 years.

"People have been waiting for their land for 20 years. Some have died," said Constance Mogale, an applicant and spokesman for the Alliance for Rural Democracy.

Commenting on the judgment, Aninka Claassens, of the department of public law at the University of Cape Town, said the act was controversial because it was rushed through parliament just before the 2014 national elections.

At the time, President Jacob Zuma told tribal chiefs to "find good lawyers" to "make land claims on behalf of your people".

Analyst Nick Henson, of the Africa Research Institute, said the act was more about vote-catching and political theatre than about meaningful rural change.

Smith said that, under the new act, chiefs were given preference in new land claims to the detriment of the rural poor.

One of the main objections to the act was that it did not stop new land claims being made after the land had already been claimed, said Mogale.

"It may seem counter-intuitive that the Constitutional Court has frozen land claims," Claassens said, "but it has confirmed what we believed.

"The law was being used cynically by the government to give it a reason to ignore the claims made before 1998."

Claassens said the judgment was "significant".

"The Constitutional Court is recognising the politics here. It is saying to the minister of land reform, and to President Jacob Zuma, 'You can't take a process that was meant for the poorest of the poor and give the land to chiefs'. The timing is significant."

Source: The Times via I-Net Bridge