High court dismisses Madiba ‘heritage objects’ appeal application
The high court has dismissed with costs an appeal application by the SA Heritage Resources Agency and two other state entities, aimed at stopping Nelson Mandela’s daughter and his former jailer turned friend from auctioning off items given to them by the late president.
The three judges of the Gauteng division of the high court in Pretoria said in their ruling on Wednesday that the application to appeal by the heritage agency, the Robben Island Museum and the department of sport, arts & culture had no prospect of success.
“There is no clear indication that the Mandela objects fit the mould of heritage objects.”
The items in dispute include a quilted blanket given to Madiba by former US president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, Ray Ban sunglasses Mandela wore on his release from prison, a signed copy of the SA constitution, various artworks, signed books, clothing items associated with the former statesman, and the key to his cell.
The Pretoria court ruled on December 4 last year, a day before the 10th anniversary of Madiba’s death, that Dr Makaziwe Mandela and Christo Brand had every right to dispose of the items which they had inherited.
Brand was the former president’s prison warder in the 1980s when the two became friends.
The court action was first launched on an urgent basis earlier in 2023, when the agency, museum and department attempted to interdict Makaziwe and Brand from selling the items. The court found at the time that there was no urgency in the matter and dismissed the application with costs.
Determined to keep the “Mandela objects” in the country, the applicants launched further court action.
This time the three entities asked the court to order Makaziwe and Brand to return the 29 Mandela objects to SA within 30 days, and interdict them from taking them out of the country again.
The items were set to go under the hammer in New York in January 2022, but the auction was halted when the agency intervened, claiming they were heritage objects, and that Makaziwe and Brand had shipped them out of the country illegally.
But in a rare three-judge sitting of a court of first instance in December 2023, it was unanimously found Makaziwe should be allowed to dispose of her father’s personal effects as she saw fit. In their dismissal of the appeal application on Wednesday, acting judges Vuyani Ngalwana and Rathaga Ramawele and former public protector Judge Selby Baqwa questioned the argument by the applicants that there was a “strong association” between the objects and Mandela.
“The applicants’ broad sweep of heritage objects by dint of ‘strong association’ with the former statesman would result in absurdity with every object even vaguely related to President Mandela becoming... heritage objects.
“What distinguishes Mandela’s stationary exercise bike (not included in the list of disputed items) and a copy of the constitution that he autographed and handed back to his former jailer turned friend when the latter asked him to initial it, and which is included in the list?”
The judgment also noted that the applicants had not challenged Brand’s emphasis that the key on the list was in fact a duplicate and not the original key to Mandela’s cell.