Expropriation challenge looms
As committee finalises report, opposition gears up for legal action against ANC and EFF bid to change constitution
Opposition parties and the Institute of Race Relations are preparing to take legal action to stop the push by the ANC and the EFF to amend the constitution to clarify how land can be expropriated without compensation.
Opposition parties and the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) are preparing to take legal action to stop the push by the ANC and the EFF to amend the constitution to clarify how land can be expropriated without compensation.
Parliament’s joint constitutional review committee is finalising its report and recommendations on whether a constitutional amendment is needed to ease such expropriation.
The committee is due to conclude its work on Thursday and the issue will probably be put to the vote. With the ANC enjoying a majority in the committee and having secured the support of the EFF and the UDM, the vote will just be a formality.
The three parties say constitutional amendment is needed to address skewed land ownership patterns dating back to the colonial and apartheid eras.
The parties opposed to an amendment — the DA, COPE, IFP, Freedom Front Plus, and ACDP — have all said the review committee’s work so far was characterised by several procedural flaws.
In the main, these parties question the way written submissions were handled, and they say that former president Kgalema Motlanthe’s high-level panel report was largely ignored. In November, Motlanthe tabled a review of key legislation in parliament.
His high-level panel proposed that, instead of amending the constitution the government use its expropriation powers currently available more boldly.
Motlanthe’s panel also found that a lack of leadership and policy direction, corruption and inadequate budget were to blame for the country’s failed land reform.
The budget for land reform is less than 0.4% of the national budget. Of this, less than 0.1% is set aside for land redistribution.
According to the constitutional review committee’s draft report, there was overwhelming support in the public-oral hearings for a constitutional amendment on expropriation of land without compensation.
However, in terms of the written submissions, the report indicates that 65% of valid submissions were opposed to changing the constitution, while 34% were in favour of its amendment. About 450,000 valid written submissions were received, yet only about 400 were analysed.
The EFF has argued that the numbers of written submissions opposing the amendment would not be a factor when MPs draft the final recommendations.
It said that “this is not a referendum, but about the quality of submissions”.
ACDP MP Steve Swart said the committee clearly did not consider written submissions, which meant it had failed to fulfil its constitutional obligation. The DA suggested that the amendment would not pass constitutional muster.
Freedom Front Plus MP Corné Mulder said: “The South African public and the international community should take note that the process was a charade and therefore fundamentally flawed.
“The decision to amend section 25 was already taken by the national executive committee [NEC] of the ANC and announced by President [Cyril] Ramaphosa on July 31 2018.”
The IRR said on Wednesday that it was briefing lawyers in preparation for taking the “procedurally flawed work of parliament’s constitutional review committee on judicial review. The committee has a constitutional obligation to hear and heed what South Africans have said on the issue. The IRR is determined to ensure that it fulfils this obligation.
“The hundreds of thousands of submissions, which people took the trouble to send in, must be fully taken into account, not effectively relegated to the rubbish bin, as the committee currently seems intent on doing.”
THE PROCESS WAS A CHARADE AND THEREFORE FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED. THE DECISION ... WAS ALREADY TAKEN