Cabinet’s Expropriation Bill, whereby property owners across South Africa could be dispossessed of their land without compensation, will again be tabled for approval by the National Assembly on September 14.
This comes a day after the Equality Court in Johannesburg ruled that the signing of the inflammatory ‘struggle song’, Dubul’ibhunu (Kill the Boer) did not amount to hate speech and that it should rather be seen in the context of freedom of expression.
Promulgation of the Expropriation Bill has consistently failed on the basis that it goes against Section 25(2) of the Constitution of South Africa wherein the right to own property is safeguarded.
Previously the ANC and the EFF attempted to have this section of the Constitution amended, but talks between the two parties broke down over disagreement that all land in South Africa be transferred to the state – an EFF demand.
Technically, the cumbersome clause states that the Constitution provides protection for the holders of property rights as understood and guaranteed by 1997’s White Paper on Land Reform Policy.
A principal part of the White Paper’s wording, that land restitution should “demonstrate tolerance and wisdom in the application of land reform policies”, helped to quell fears at the time that South Africa could find itself on a Zimbabwe-style path of disastrous land redistribution.
It is widely believed though that without scrapping or amending Section 25(2), the Expropriation Bill will clash with the Constitution.
Should those eager to enforce expropriation without compensation (EWC) succeed in getting the Bill promulgated despite Section 25(2), it could be passed into law before the end of the year.
The consequences of such a development are fairly well known, but beyond the obvious could present Cyril Ramaphosa with a presidential crisis never seen since Nelson Mandela first took the oath back in 1995.
How, for example, do you swear to uphold the Constitution yet oversee the implementation of a Bill that flouts constitutionally enshrined property rights?
Banks, for one, must be monitoring developments around the Expropriation Bill – which many say will never be passed – with more than just a measure of concern, since anyone with land title could face EWC.
In the meantime, since it has become known that the Bill is heading back to Parliament – again – the Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU) has strongly reacted against the ruling party’s continued attempts to get the Bill passed.
TAU general manager Bennie van Zyl has said that the lie that land had been stolen, promoted by the ANC and the EFF among others, had been repeated so often that it had become ‘truth’.
Van Zyl has motivated for the view to be legally challenged.
