Local law man’s take on land reform

Local legal practitioner, Matome Chidi unpacks processes that he thinks should be followed by Government to expropriate land without compensation in a book titled ‘Landlessness: A Constitutional Sin’.
During an interview with Polokwane Observer, Chidi indicated that the book was partly meant to contribute to answering to the debate in Parliament on how to expropriate land without compensation. He said Section 25 and other sections of the Constitution had been analysed and recommendations made on how the state may expropriate land without compensation.
All land acquired during apartheid administration was acquired legally because the law made it possible for those who were privileged back then but disadvantaging other racial groups such as blacks and coloureds, he alluded. Though the law existed, it was unjust law, Chidi added and stressed that the structural racism made it possible for the current occupants or owners of the land to acquire land.
“Section 25 of the Constitution promotes land reform than private ownership of property but it does so when it says that you reform obviously from land inequality to land equality and if you were to do so you focus on land – alternatively property obtained due to discriminatory laws. Any person who was favoured by the apartheid regime managed to acquire a lot of things such as quality education because of land. They used the land to get money to afford such things,” Chidi explained.
When asked as to why he had decided to write the book now rather than earlier, he stated that the politicians who make decisions about the country have never shown commitment to land reform. He reiterated that it would have been a waste of time and resources to write about something not considered important. He could only strain himself given his law practice on implementable solutions. The book, he commented, was what they could contribute to the land expropriation debate.
“The society envisaged in the constitution, is a society based on human dignity meaning we should enjoy the right to labour, food and water, among others, but without the land one cannot have enough of the aforementioned thus Section 27 of the Constitution is violated. All of us have to contribute to food security. It can’t just be one group doing so,” Chidi said.
He added that the first and immediate step in dealing with land reform was to apply Section 25 which permits expropriation without compensation provided a law is made to regulate how that should be done without amending the Constitution and if an amendment comes, that it comes later.
Chidi presented a copy of the book to the first black Judge President of the North Gauteng High Court, Bernard Ngoepe during Polo­kwane Society of Advocates’ annual gala dinner at Protea Hotel Ranch Resort recently.
A book launch is scheduled for tomorrow (Friday) at the Pietersburg Provincial Hospital’s Health Auditorium. Copies of Landlessness: A Constitutional Sin will be available for purchase at the launch.

Story and photo: ENDY SENYATSI
>>endy@observer.co.za