State ordered to return land to rural community
THE STATE has been forced by a court to implement a decision it took 14 years ago to return land to an Mpumalanga community.
In her ruling at the Land Claims Court, Acting Judge Heidi Barnes also dismissed the State’s opposition to the application by Kromkrans community as lacking legal foundation.
Kromkrans is part of the farming district of Carolina, east Mpumalanga.
The successfully reclaimed 2 147 hectares of land were expropriated without compensation from black inhabitants in 1978 under the 1913 Natives Land Act.
In 2003, the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform resolved to transfer the land back to the community. The department went as far as buying portions of land from white owners for millions of rand.
“Despite the fact that the department purchased land, in 2003 and 2005, purportedly in settlement of the claims, no land has been restored to the Kromkrans claimants to date,” Barnes wrote in her judgment.
She referred to the department’s 2003 annual report, which stated the Kromkrans settlement as achievement for the previous year.
Said the report: “Some 400 households who were affected by the dispossession have received 2 147ha of land. The restored land will be used for agricultural purposes such as grazing, livestock farming and crop production.
“A housing project will also be established. The settlement celebration was held in August 2002.”
In addition to transferring the property to the community, the department had also agreed to register the Kromkrans Community Property Association. This would serve as a business vehicle for farming projects on the land.
After years of failure to implement, the department argued before Barnes it wanted to review and set aside its own decision.
The department’s counsel told court the minister at the time took the decision by mistake.
But Barnes found this reasoning flawed, saying the review could have been done years before the Kromkrans community resorted to court.
“… There is no real explanation for the respondents’ delay in seeking to review the minister’s decisions, let alone a satisfactory one,” said Barnes.
“In these circumstances the unreasonable delay cannot be condoned and the review application falls to be dismissed for this reason.”
The department’s dithering has robbed the community an opportunity to benefit from their land, said Barnes.
“In this case, the state through its failure to comply with the agreement which it concluded with the applicants, failed to give effect to the constitutional obligations which it owes the applicants,” she said.
“This has been severely prejudicial to the applicants who have been unable to obtain the benefit of their constitutional rights to restitution for 14 years.
“The state’s failure in this regard remains unexplained and its opposition to the applicants’ application for specific performance proved to be without factual or legal foundation.”
Barnes also slapped the State with legal costs, pointing out this was uncommon in the court, which generally handled social litigation.
“However, the considerations in this case are different,” she wrote, and made reference to a Constitutional Court ruling that said the State always ought to respect the rule of law.
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