Cape Town - In less than one minute, Western Cape High Court Judge Vincent Saldanha dismissed Afriforum’s urgent application to interdict Parliament from adoption the Constitutional Review Committee’s first report on land expropriation without compensation.
Despite the setback, Afriforum has vowed to continue their fight against land expropriation without compensation.
Parliament’s committee adopted its report in favour of amending Section 25 of the Constitution which protects property rights on November 15.
The second part of Afriforum’s application, to review the public participation process will be heard at a later date.
Saldanha said the issue of costs would be determined at a later stage. He said Afriforum and Parliament, may between themselves settle a timetable with regards to proceedings to determine the application to review the public participation process.
The Constitutional Review Committee recommended that Section 25 be amended to make it explicitly clear that expropriation of land without compensation by the state in the public interest should be “one mechanism to address the injustices of the past, inflicted on the majority of South Africans”.
Parliament’s spokesperson Moloto Mothapo. Video: Quinton Mtyala
Outside court, Parliament’s spokesperson Moloto Mothapo said it was pleased at the court outcome.
“It affirms the correctness of the work that was done by the committee and the decision that was made, in terms of how it has treated the submissions. The submissions, 100 000 or so from Afriforum were abusive to the public participation process because they were computer-generated. There was nothing new they were saying and the committee has taken it as one view,” said Mothapo.
Afriforum CEO Kallie Kriel said the high court ruling was only the beginning of their fight to halt a change to the Constitution.
“We will be going ahead full-scale with our bigger court case, with regards to the merits, whether Parliament and it’s (Constitutional Review) Committee had ignored democratic inputs of our country’s citizens. We believe they did so, we believe we have a strong case,” said Kriel.