The Freedom Front Plus says it plans to invite all political party leaders in Parliament and request their support to refer the Expropriation Act directly to the Constitutional Court to determine its constitutionality.
President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the bill into law yesterday.
FF Plus leader Pieter Groenewald says the constitution allows the Constitutional Court to consider an Act, if a third of the members of the National Assembly make such a request.
“As leader of the Freedom Front Plus, I am writing a letter to each and every party leader in National Assembly and request their support that we can refer the Expropriation Act signed by the President directly to the Constitutional Court to determine its constitutionality. Section 8 of the constitution determines if a third of the members of the National Assembly request such an action and it must be within the signing by the President, then the Constitutional Court must consider the Act,” says Groenewald.
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Meanwhile, Contralesa says the Expropriation Act in its current form will not benefit dispossessed black South Africans.
Contralesa President Kgosi Lameck Mokoena says the Act still gives powers to the current property owners.
“In this legislation, the features of the property clause are still in place, intact, nothing has changed. The question is, if we are still having those conditions that dictate the property clause, we are back to zero,” says Mokoena.
“Hence, we are calling for the President to gather experts and advise him on how to do this thing. Parliament must go back and try to amend this legislation because it is not assisting our people. Deserving owners of land, some of them will go out of this world without getting their land back if we are still having these conditions that are there,” he adds.
Mokoena added that government needs to relook at the Expropriation Act.
“The interest of the people must come first here, as to say how far are we going to go in making sure that our people get their land back. And we are saying with the current legislation, we are not addressing that issue. Hence we are pleading with government to go back and look into this and say, ‘are our people going to benefit from this current legislation?’ And the answer is No. If it is No, then they must go back to the drawing board and make sure that they legislate accordingly, to the fact that it assists our people who have been removed from their land brutally by the apartheid state.
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Lobby Group, AfriForum is threatening legal action against the Government of National Unity (GNU) should the government start expropriating land without compensation.
The aim of the law is to repeal the Apartheid-era Expropriation Act of 1975.
The law also sets out instances where organs of the state may expropriate land in the public interest. It says land may only be expropriated when the expropriating authority fails to reach an agreement with the owner of the property with the purpose of acquisition.
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