Abstract
South Africa’s history is characterised by injustice, from the dispossession of land belonging to the indigenous inhabitants during the colonial era, to the discriminatory laws under the apartheid government. Nowhere is this injustice more glaring than in the marginalisation of African people in relation to access to land specifically, and the right to property in general.1 The majority of people in South Africa, black people in the main, still have either no or insufficient access to land, despite being the majority and despite the promise of reform, as espoused in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (“the constitution”). This is the backdrop to the current debate about land reform and the amendment of section 25 of the constitution (“the property clause”), namely whether expropriation without compensation (“EWC”) should be allowed to fast-track land reform. This debate stems from the premise that paying just and equitable compensation for expropriation is frustrating the realisation of land reform and that abolishing this requirement is the answer to this challenge...
LL.M. (Human Rights Law)