THE SUPREME COURT OF APPEAL
OF SOUTH AFRICA
Case no: 136/2003
REPORTABLE
In the appeal between:
Johanna Magdalena Cornelia PRINSLOO
First appellant
BOTHA FAMILY TRUST Second appellant
and
THE NDEBELE-NDZUNDZA COMMUNITY
First Respondent
REGIONAL LANDS CLAIMS COMMISSIONER,
MPUMALANGA Second Respondent
MINISTER OF LAND AFFAIRS AND AGRICULTURE
Third Respondent
Before: Scott JA, Cameron JA, Mthiyane JA, Lewis JA
and Ponnan JA
Appeal: Monday 16 May 2005
Judgment: Tuesday 31 May 2005
Restitution of Land Rights A ct 22 of 1994 – ‘Community’ – Group
using land unti l about 1940 unde r tri bal authority and customs –
No residence, im mediate super vision or control by registered
owners – ‘Community’ constituted – ‘Rights in land’ – use, control
and possession – ‘Dispossession’ – physical coerci on not required
– Section 2(2) – ‘j ust & equitable compensation’ – meaning of –
matter referred back to Land Claims Court
2
JUDGMENT
_____________________________________________________
CAMERON JA:
[1] On the edge of the Highve ld escarpment in Mpumalanga,
northeast of Middelburg and to the east of Groblersdal, lies the
farm ‘Kafferskraal’ (the farm). Its name dates back at least 133
years, to 1 December 1872, when th e Transvaal Republic first
granted the land in private ow nership to a white farmer,
Abraham Johannes Korf. Since then the name has appeared
on the title deeds. It is opprobri ous, the racial epithet among
the most abhorrent in South Africa today. But the claimants to
the farm, referred to as ‘the Ndebele-Ndzundza community’,
the first respondent in this appeal (the claimants), emphasised
its significance in the Land Claims Court (LCC) and again in
argument before us: the very name confirms, they say, that the
land has long been settled by bla ck people, and that this fact
survived the superimposition of white registered title.
[2] And indeed history gives this warrant. Human habitation of the
area can be traced back to the first half of the 17 th century,
before the colonisation of the Cape. According to oral tradition
and the regimental back-dating system used in Ndebele
3
custom, 1 chief Ndzundza and his followers settled at
KwaSimkhulu, some 30km southeast of the farm, in about
1636. The present claimants number among their
descendants. They consti tute a branch of the Ndebele-
Ndzundza Tribe who, after being attacked and dispersed by
Mzilikazi in 1822, resettled in strongholds on what became
known as the ‘Mapochsgronden’ to the northeast of the farm.
After a bitter war, the Volksraad of the Transvaal Republic in
1883 distributed these ancestral lands, extending over some 36
000 hectares, in private ownership to white farmers. The
burghers then scattered the tribe by enforcing a system of
indentured labour on white farms. This resulted in what the
appellants’ expert called ‘the diaspora of the Ndebele’.
[3] The history of the farm is entw ined with that ‘diaspora’ and with
the ‘Mapoch war’. But the land does not form part of the
Mapochsgronden. Before the wa r it had already been granted
in private ownership to A J Korf. The present claimants’
immediate connection with the f arm dates back to some time
1 Dr Christo Jansen van Vuuren, the ethnological expert for the appellants, explained that the
Ndebele male initiation rite or ingoma is held every four years and entails the allocation of
regimental names (iindanga) to initiates who complete the ritual. These names are allocated
in a fixed sequence and repeated in exact cyclical order (similar to East African systems).
The Ndzundza maintains a system of only fifteen names, cyclically repeated. Men remember
their own regimental names and others’ for life. Both Ndebele men and women remember
the regimental names of ancestors. Initiations, birth, settlements and events can therefore be
dated with fair accuracy.
4
before the turn of the 20 th century, when Madzidzi, one of the
leaders imprisoned after the M apoch war, escaped and settled
on the farm with some of his followers: his mission was to
ensure preservation of the system of male initiation essential to
Ndebele culture and the perpet uation of the tribe as a
distinctive community.
[4] And that indeed happened: on the land now claimed the male
initiation rite (ingoma) was restored under Madzidzi. Madzidzi
lies buried on the farm. Among the claimants is his grandson,
who was the claimants’ chief witness. They co mprise persons
who still live on the farm, as well as on seventeen surrounding
farms, to which they have also laid claim. Others live on the
farm ‘Goedgedacht’ (or Goedehoop), in the district of Nebo in
what was formerly Lebowa. This was purchased for the
community in 1938, and it is her e that some members of the
community were relocated in about 1939 or 1940.
[5] The regional land claims commissioner for Mpumalanga, the
second respondent, referred only the claim in respect of the
farm to the LCC for adjudication under the Restitution of Land
Rights Act 22 of 1994 (the Act) . The Department of Land
Affairs, against whom the claim lies, supported the claim (the
Minister of Land Affairs and Agriculture is the third respondent).
5
The claim in respect of the ot her farms has s eemingly been
held in abeyance while the present claim is adjudicated.
[6] The appellants have their own bonds of sentiment and history
with the farm. The first appellant, Mrs Prinsloo, is the
granddaughter of Willem Jacobu s Grobler, who purchased
Portion 1 of the farm in 1939. In 1996 two of his
granddaughters, the first appellant’s cousins, sold that portion
to a private farming company, which reached a settlement with
the claimants regarding the claim. Portion 1 is therefore not
part of the proceedings. In 1941 Grobler al so bought Portion 2
of the farm. That is now regis tered in the first appellant’s
name.
[7] The second appellant is the Botha Family Trust, the registered
owner of Portion 3 of the farm. The Botha family’s links to the
farm go back to 1889, wh en a granddaughter of Abraham
Johannes Korf married Phillipus Rudolph Botha, the great-
grandfather of the generation whom we may presume (the
evidence was inexplicit) are the current trust beneficiaries.
[8] Only Portions 2 and 3 of the farm are thus at issue in the
appeal. The question is whether the claimants have
established a right to restitution in the farm as contemplated in
6
s 2 of the Act, which provides for ‘entitlement to restitution’.
Section 2(1) reads:
‘A person shall be entitled to restitution of a right in land if –
(a) he or she is a person dispossessed of a right in land after 19 June
1913 as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices; or
(b) it is a deceased estate dispossess ed of a right in land after 19 June
1913 as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices; or
(c) he or she is the direct descendant of a person referred to in
paragraph (a) who has died without lodging a claim and has no
ascendant who –
(i) is a direct descendant of a per son referred to in paragraph (a);
and
(ii) has lodged a claim for the restitution of a right in land; or
(d) it is a community or part of a community dispossessed of a right in
land after 19 June 1913 as a result of past racially discriminatory laws
or practices; and
(e) the claim for such restitution is lodged not later than 31 December
1998.’
[9] By agreement between the pa rties, the question of the
claimants’ entitlement to restitution was the sole issue referred
for trial before the LCC. That court (Moloto J, with Prof MJ
Wiechers as assessor), found that the claimants were entitled
to restitution, and granted them leave to set down the
7
remaining issues for determination. The LCC later refused
leave to appeal, but this court granted the necessary leave.
[10] There are two principal iss ues. The first is whether the
claimants are a ‘community’ within the Act. The second, if they
are, is whether they were ‘dispossessed’ of the land as
contemplated by the Act. T hese questions each entail the
further question whether the ‘community’, if there was one, had
a ‘right in land’.
Are the claimants a ‘community’ within the Act?
[11] Section 1 of the Act provides that ‘community’ means –
‘any group of persons whose rights in land are derived from shared rules
determining access to land held in common by such group, and includes
part of any such group’.
The appellants concede that in the popular sense of the word
the claimants are a ‘community’, but dispute that they qualify
under the particular meaning of the statute. In a careful and
lucid argument on behalf of the app ellants, in which he pointed
to a number of factual errors and historical misperceptions in
the LCC judgment, Mr Havenga contended that the Ndebele-
Ndzundza Tribe lost its traditi onal rights in land after the
8
Mapoch war in 1883, and never regained those rights in
respect of any traditional lands.
[12] There were, counsel pointed out, no Ndebele strongholds on
the farm itself: they were some distance away, in the
Mapochsgronden. He contended that it was in any event
unlikely that the farm or any of those surrounding it were part of
the Ndebele traditional lands before the 1883 war. By that time
the farm had already been given in private ownership. There
was thus no ‘community’ in relation to the farm, holding any
land in common, as required by the Act, in accordance with
shared rules. Mr Havenga em phasised in this connection the
diffuseness of the community’s broader claim, which avowedly
still includes the seventeen neighbouring farms.
[13] This contention requires the evidence to be considered. The
appellants’ ethnologist, Dr C hristo Jansen van Vuuren, an
acknowledged expert on Ndebele hi story and culture, testified
that ‘the people who lived on that farm before 1883 must have
been Ndebele, as well as Pedi’. His evidence gives warrant to
the claimants’ assertion, against counsel’s submission, that the
history of indigenous settlement of the farm both pre-dates and
overlaps with the grant of registered title.
9
[14] The claimants’ chief witness was Mr Mbulawa Abraham
Mahlangu, grandson of Madzidzi . Mr Havenga subjected his
evidence to some measure of just ified criticism. Nevertheless,
Mr Mahlangu’s account of the history of the community and its
relation to the land, derived fr om received oral history, was
corroborated at crucial points by the documentary record. He
stated that the claimants’ community –
‘remained at Kafferskraal as our land. We were under nobody. We were
just the inhabitants of that place. After some years a white person came,
his name was Henwood. He then told us that that place belonged to him
and that we should pay an amount per year and then they started to let
these Madzidzi people pay a certain amount.
…
There were no white people. The [community] were working for
themselves, they were ploughing and there were also herds of cattle.’
[15] The Ndebele-Ndzundza people, he said (sketching
something of an idyll), ‘regard the farm as their natural place’:
‘This is the place where they had built their houses, they were ploughing
and they had herds of cattle, they were happy about the food which they
obtained from the field and they were satisfied about the type of life which
they lived there’.
[16] Neither Willem Jacobus Grobler nor his de scendants ever
lived on the farm. They lived on a neighbouring farm,
10
Waterval, which W J Grobler purchased in 1916. That is also
where the first appellant and her two sons, who conduct
farming operations, live at present.
[17] We do not know where th e presumed beneficiaries of the
Botha Family Trust live, or where their predecessors lived,
since no evidence was pres ented on their behalf regarding
Portion 3. There was at all event s nothing to gainsay the oral-
historical account presented on beh alf of the claimants that in
the period up to the fifth decade of the last century, ‘there were
no white people’ actually living on the farm, as opposed to
holding its legal title.
[18] And the documentary evidence, though it relates principally
to Portion 2, supports this claim. Between 1887 and 1891, one
C M du Plooy, who married one of the daughters of A J Korf,
the original grantee, became the registered owner of the
sections now constituting Portion 2. In 1902 he sold this
portion to J W Henwood. It was in that year, according to oral
tradition, that Madzidzi was formally installed as a chief: and
the evidence indicates that by this time he and his followers
had been residing on the farm for some years.
[19] Shortly after Henwood beca me registered owner, in 1904,
the Commissioner for Native Affairs, Sir Godfrey Lagden,
11
reported that a portion of the tr ibe of Nyabela resided on the
farm under the care of Madzidzi (a brother of Nyabela). In his
evidence before the Beaumont Commission in 1916, Madzidzi
stated that part of the Ndzundza was living on the farm, and
that they had to work for the su rrounding farmers without pay.
In his evidence before a local committee of the Eastern
Transvaal (established after gov ernment refused to implement
the land acquisitions for blacks the Beaumont Commission
recommended), Madzidzi again stat ed that he was residing on
the farm, though he requested to be permitted to relocate.
[20] Of some significance in determining the residents’ relation to
the land is that in 1921 J W Henwood was willing to sell. On 8
November 1921 he wrote to M adzidzi’s nephew, Chief Fene
(Mfene) Andries Mapoch, statin g that he had discussed the
sale of the farm with Fene’s son Cornelius:
‘We have talked the matter over and I have given him my word that a
reasonable time will be given you to inspect the farm and to conclude
purchase of same.
You are now quite free, subject to the Native Commissioner’s permission,
to take possession and live on the farm with your followers.’
[21] Henwood was not himself livi ng on the farm : he wrote from
Middelburg, where his letterhead shows he was operating as a
12
‘direct importer’. Of further significance is a follow-up letter the
local Commissioner wrote in December 1921 to the Secretary
for Native Affairs, ‘strongly’ recommending the sale of the farm
to Fene. His letter records that ‘a large number of Mfene’s
people are already living on the f arm’. This was despite the
fact that ‘the farm is not in a native area’.
[22] The ‘large number’ of people were Madzidzi and his
followers, the antecedents of the present claimants. Further
official correspondence in that year records that Madzidzi
‘resides with about 75 taxpayer s on a portion of Kafferskraal
No 62 on rent paying terms’.
[23] The sale was later vet oed because of objections by
‘neighbouring European owners’ and because the Member of
Parliament for Middelburg ‘v ery strongly opposed’ it.
Requesting an audience with the Mi nister of Native Affairs,
Chief Mfene wrote protesting that ‘Our hearts are bursting with
grief.’ He died later that year.
[24] The question of the sale of the farm did not disappear. A
departmental letter to the Assistant Native Commissioner at
Pokwani recorded on 15 M arch 1935 that Chief ‘Jaftha
Mahlangu’ (the son of Madzidzi , also known as Mtjhartjhana
Jonas) and another chief had in the past already made
13
application, on behalf of their fo llowers, to purchase the farm:
but because it was not in an area ‘released’ for purchase by
blacks under the racial legislation, the department had not
approved the sale. This is signi ficant because it appears to
refer to a prior attempted purchase by Madzidzi’s son, separate
from the 1922 attempted purchase by his cousin, Mfene.
[25] Other possible avenues of l and acquisition appeared to close
in anticipation of, and in the wake of, the enactment of the
Native Trust and Land Act 18 of 1 936. Despite this, the sale of
the farm to or on behalf of t he community remained a current
issue. On 5 August 1938, N L Henwood (son of J W Henwood)
wrote to the Secretary for Native Affairs.
‘I would like to sell my farm Kaffe rskraal No 62, District Middelburg,
Transvaal; in extent 1470 morgen. This farm has been a native area for
many years and is totally unimproved. …
I might mention that the Chief of the Mapoch Natives (Jonas Machechan)
lives on this farm with his tribe. His father and grandfather before him, for
the past fifty odd years or more, hav e done so. No white people have
ever lived there, and it is, and always has been, entirely a Native farm.’
[26] Henwood Junior was writi ng from Springs, where his
letterhead shows that he was a deal er in steel fittings. He too
was not living on the farm. But his letter shows more than this.
14
It not merely affirms the abs ence of white residential
occupation of the farm, but it records that the farm ‘is, and
always has been, entirely a Native farm’. The sale foundered,
however, as did those earlier, on a departmental veto because
the land was not within a ‘released area’ for blacks.
[27] Although the deeds history of the farm appears to indicate
that ‘Kafferskraal No 62’ in cluded the whole farm, Henwood
was, of course, proposing to sell only the portion of the farm
registered in his name. But th e claimants assert that the
residents his letter referred to occupied the whole farm, and
that his description of the nature of its human habitation applies
equally to the rest of the farm. These assertions seem justified.
It does not seem likely that Henwood would have referred to
his portion as constituting a ‘native area’ or that he would have
claimed that ‘no white people have ever lived there’, or that the
farm was ‘entirely … Native’ if th e rest of the farm was in any
respect distinctively different.
[28] Certainly there is no evidenti ary basis for inferring that the
rest of the farm was different. There is as mentioned no direct
evidence regarding the human se ttlement of Portion 3, and in
its absence there is nothing to gainsay the accuracy of the oral-
historical account that the cl aimants’ predecessors occupied
15
both portions at issue in the appeal. Nor is there anything to
gainsay the inference that no white people lived on any part of
the farm until after the relocation of 1939.
[29] This evidence in my view warrants the following factual
conclusions:
(a) The claimants’ predecessors constituted a group of people
who lived on and worked the farm for a continuous period of
nearly fifty years from before the end of the 19 th century until
their relocation in the late 1930s.
(b) They lived under the authority of a chief designated by the
traditional tribal hierarchy: in the late 19 th century and first two
decades of the 20th century, under Chief Madzidzi, and for the
next twenty years under his so n and successor, Chief Japtha
Mahlangu.
(c) They held the land as a g roup, and in common with each
other.
(d) They occupied the farm exclusively and without immediate
supervision or direct control from the white landowners.
(e) They did so in accordance with the ancient customs and
traditions of the Ndebele-Ndzundza people.
[30] The bonds of custom, culture and hierarchical loyalty that
characterised the inhabitants’ o ccupancy and their relation to
16
the land are most tellin gly shown by the fact that Madzidzi was
sent to resuscitate the traditi onal Ndebele rite of initiation on
the farm, and that he did so.
[31] This evidence in my view ju stifies, as overwhelmingly likely,
the inference that the group’s customs included rules regulating
their access to, and use of, the land.
A ‘right in land’?
[32] What was the group’s ‘right in land’? The Act defines the
concept extremely widely, as meaning:
‘any right in land whether registered or unregistered, and may include the
interest of a labour tenant and sharecropper, a customary law interest, the
interest of a beneficiary under a trust arrangem ent and beneficial
occupation for a continuous period of not less than 10 years prior to the
dispossession in question’ (s 1).
[33] According to the most influential modern analysis of
ownership, that by Tony Honoré, the incidents of the classic
right of ownership are the right to possess, the right to use, the
right to manage, the right to the income of the thing, the right to
the capital, the right to security, the rights of transmissibility and
the absence of term, the prohibi tion of harmful use, the liability
17
to execution and residuarity. 2 Honoré emphasises that though
these incidents are ‘standard’, t hey are not individually
necessary ‘for the person of inherence to be designated
“owner” of a particular thing in a given system’.
[34] Plainly the farm’s occup ants did not enjoy a number of the
standard incidents of ownership, su ch as the right to security,
the right to the capital of the farm , the transmissibility of its title,
and residuarity. But the restituti on legislation does not require
there to have been ownership before dispossession. It
requires far less. In the present case the group over decades
occupied, used and managed the farm, and did so without the
proximity of its white owners and despite their registered title.
They did so before any white owner asked them to pay rent,
and they continued to do so afterwards.
[35] Counsel for the appellants contended that the fact that
Henwood Senior exacted rent from Madzidzi and his followers
from 1902 contradicted the clai mants’ assertion that their
predecessors had rights in the l and. I do not agree. It is
correct that Henwood collected rent, and that subsequent
documents allude to the occupa nts as paying rent, or living
2 Tony Honoré ‘Ownership’ in AG Guest (ed) Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence (1961) p 107,
discussed in the context of the racial legislation of apartheid by Carole Lewis ‘The Modern
Concept of Ownership of Land’ 1985 Acta Juridica 241-266.
18
under labour conditions. But I ca nnot see how this negates the
conclusion that the residents enjoyed rights in the land as
contemplated by the statute. The Act’s definition expressly
includes customary law interes ts and the rights of labour
tenants and sharecroppers: the farm’s residents certainly
exercised nothing less.
[36] Counsel contende d also that the fact that the land was
granted in registered white owners hip before Madzidzi’s arrival
excluded the inferenc e that the claimants’ predecessors
enjoyed rights in the land. I ca nnot accept this. First, the
evidence of Dr Jansen v an Vuuren offers support for
continuous indigenous occupation predating the grant of
registered ownership. But in any event, the statute recognises
rights of communal ownersh ip under indigenous law.
3 I n m y
view the fact that registered title exists neither necessarily
extinguishes the rights in land that the statute contemplates,
nor prevents them from arising.
[37] The subtlety and complexity – and the inescapable
contradictions – of the positi on in which the farm’s residents
found themselves is reflected in the following exchange during
the cross-examination of Mbulawa Abraham Mahlangu:
3 Alexkor Ltd v The Richtersveld Community 2004 (5) SA 460 (CC) para 62.
19
‘Do you agree that in 1902 Mr Henwood became the owner of a portion of
Kafferskraal? – He was not the owner . He let the people pay because of
his colour.’
[38] The Act recognises complexities of this kind, and attempts to
create practical solutions for them in its pursuit of equitable
redress. The statute also recognises the significance of
registered title. But it does not afford it unblemished primacy. I
consider that in this case the farm’s residents established rights
in the land that registered ownership neither extinguished nor
precluded from arising.
[39] To conclude this aspect of the appeal: I agree with Dodson J
in In re Kranspoort Community4 that the concept of ‘community’
envisaged by the Act requires –
‘that there must be, at the time of the claim,
(1) a sufficiently cohesive group of pers ons to show that there is still a
community or a part of a community, taking into account the impact
which the original removal of the community would have had;
(2) some element of commonality with the community as it was at the
time of the dispossession to show that it is the same community or
part of the same community that is claiming.’
4 2000 (2) SA 124 (LCC) para 34 (Moloto J concurring; Mr Plewman assessor).
20
[40] The claimants have fulfille d these conditions. The farm’s
residents constituted a group, or a part of a group, whose rights
in land were derived from share d rules determining access to
and use and enjoyment of land they held in common. The last
major question is whether this community was ‘dispossessed’
of their rights.
Was the community ‘dispossessed’?
[41] As explained, the farm Goedgedacht or Goedehoop was
purchased, together with others, in the late 1930s for the
Ndebele communities, and the ev idence showed that shortly
before his death in 1940, Madz idzi’s son, Japhta Mahlangu,
was settled there with many of his followers. In a letter dated
20 September 1940, the Assist ant Native Commissioner of
Pokwani, Middelburg District, notified the Secretary for Native
Affairs that ‘Chief Jafta Mahl angu, of the Mapoch tribe, has
been settled on Goedehoop 279, and wi th his followers allotted
lands’ on adjoining farms.
[42] The measure was intended to be temporary. It was intended
to find another location for the community. But transience
became near-permanence. When tax ed in cross-examination
with the suggestion that Goedgeda cht was a suitable location
21
for the community, Mbulaw a Abraham Mahlangu responded
thus:
‘I just want to explain the manner in which they went to Goedgedacht. It
does not mean that they were gi ven that place, Goedgedacht. The
[thrust] is that they were taken and they were placed or put in that place
and they were promised that they we re still going to look for a certain
place that can be given to them.
[Adv Havenga:] The documents … s how that Goedgedacht had six dams,
twelve strong fountains, it was under irrigation and it had 3 000 hectares,
3 000 morgen large. Do you know the farm Goedgedacht? – I know it.
And this information is correct, is it not? – I do not know why we are
supposed to talk about Goedgedacht, because we want our land, and that
is Kafferskraal.
Is it correct that Goedgedacht is t he farm that Ikosi Jafta and his royal
family settled? – It is true. But they were taken there by marshal, you
know, they were sort of forced to go there.’
[43] Mahlangu was born in Sept ember 1938. So he was scarcely
a toddler when his family moved. Yet, as on other occasions in
his evidence, his oral-historical account – that the community
was ‘sort of forced’ to move – finds warrant in the documentary
evidence. From this it is clear that there was no physically
coerced removal: that, as appears from the evidence of the
claimants’ expert, Mr De Waal, was a feature of land
22
resettlement as implemented by the National Party government
that came to power in 1948.
[44] Mahlangu himself indeed conf irmed that a section of the
community stayed on the farm. But the conditions on which
they remained were that they would work for the new owner:
‘Ja, they wanted to let them work or to make them work for their farming
purposes because they could not survive without these people.’
[45] This evidence suggests th at after 1940 the nature of the
remaining community members’ relation to the soil changed.
The attempt by Henwood Junior to sell portion of the farm to
the community had failed. In stead the first appellant’s
grandfather bought Henwood’s portion. The result was that the
community was faced with an unenviable choice – between
relocating to Goedgedacht and remai ning on the farm, but with
the loss of their previous favourable circumstances, which
included absence of direct su pervision and control by the
farm’s registered owners.
[46] The fact that there was no physically forced removal does
not mean that there was no dispossession: Abrams v Allie NO.5
Dispossession is a broad concept, which must be broadly
5 2004 (4) SA 534 (SCA) para 11, per Scott JA on behalf of the Court.
23
interpreted, bearing in mind the amplitude of the statute’s
definition of ‘right in land’:
‘The concept of dispossession in s 25(7)6 of the Constitution and in s 2 of
the Act is not concerned with the tec hnical question of the transfer of
ownership from one entity to another. It is a much broader concept than
that, given the wide definition of ‘a right in land’ in the Act. Whether there
was dispossession in this case must be determined by adopting a
substantive approach … .’
7
[47] Mr De Waal testified, when pressed in cross-examination
with the fact that the removal of part of the community was not
physically coerced, that Goedgedacht already had a resident
population, which chose to remain when farm community
members were relocated. And, more tellingly, he said, there
was no evidence or suggestion that the community was
compensated in any way for the improvements and structures
and crops they had to leave behind.
[48] In my view, given these fa cts, the circumstances of the
relocation of the farm’s comm unity to Goedgedacht in 1939
constituted a dispossession of the rights it had enjoyed in
relation to the farm over approximately the previous half-
century. They were not given any real choice: they had to
relocate to a different area, and work and live in changed
circumstances – or remain on the farm under conditions that
6 Constitution s 25(7): ‘A person or a community dispossessed of property after 19 June 1913
as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices is entitled, to the extent provided by
an Act of Parliament, either to restitution of that property or to equitable redress.’
7 Alexkor Ltd v The Richtersveld Community 2004 (5) SA 460 (CC) para 88.
24
were significantly changed. They no longer had control or use
of the land over which for m any decades they had enjoyed
unrestricted access and control.
[49] This conclusion makes it u nnecessary to consider a further
possibility raised during argum ent: whether the community
experienced a ‘constructive dispossession’ in relation to Portion
2 of the farm. It will be re called that Henwood Junior was
willing to sell the farm in 1938, that previously the community
had wished to buy it, but that previous sales as well as
Henwood’s were blocked by the racial legislation and practices
of the time. Whether in such circumstances it amounts to a
dispossession to thwart acquisition of land by a community with
long-standing ties to it (the defin ition of ‘racially discriminatory
practices’ includes ‘practices, acts or omissions’) need not be
considered now.
Procedural defects
[50] The appellants relied in the LCC and in written argument
before us on a number of procedural defects in the application
for restitution. These matters were not pressed on us in
argument. I agree in any event wi th the conclusion of the LCC
25
that the claim was lodged substantially in compliance with the
Act and the rules promulgated under it.
Was the claim excluded by s 2(2) of the Act?
[51] Section 2(2) of the Act provides:
‘(2) No person shall be entitled to restitution of a right in land if –
(a) just and equitable compensation as contemplated in section 25(3) of
the Constitution; or
(b) any other consideration wh ich is just and equitable,
calculated at the time of any dispossession of such right, was received in
respect of such dispossession.’
[52] The LCC found that this provision did not apply. It gave two
reasons. It pointed out that the Goedgedacht relocation was
originally intended as a tem porary measure, and held that
therefore it could not have been intended as compensation
‘calculated at the time of dispossession’. It also found merit in
the claimants’ argument t hat because Goedgedacht was
provided as part of homeland consolidation, in itself a racially
discriminatory process, it ‘cannot now be accepted as
compensation for past discriminatory acts’.
[53] In my view, neither reason was sound. I do not consider that
the Act, or the Constitution, contemplates that compensation
26
originally intended as temporary can never be included in the
calculation of just and equitable compensation. It would not be
logical to exclude compensa tion, received and enjoyed as
such, merely because it was or iginally intended to be
temporary, and the Act gives no warrant for suggest ing that it
should be excluded.
[54] Nor do I consider that the fact that the compensation was
provided as part of a manifestly discriminatory process
necessarily invalidates it for st atutory purposes. Again, the Act
gives no basis for excluding such compensation (compare
Abrams v Allie NO ). 8 Everything depends on the
circumstances. Here, the appellants asserted during cross-
examination of the claimants’ witnesses that Goedgedacht
constituted adequate compensation, and referred to it in terms
suggesting well-irrigated and bounteous land.
[55] These factual issues shou ld be fully examined when the
other matters that were held over for determination when the
issues were separated at the st art of proceedings in the LCC
are considered at the resumed trial.
Costs of appeal
8 2004 (4) SA 534 (SCA) paras 15-27.
27
[56] Except to the extent just indicated, the appeal must be
dismissed. The LCC made no order as to the costs of the
proceedings before it, which we understand is frequently its
approach. Although in their written argument on appeal the
claimants sought costs, no argum ent was directed to us on the
question. It may be that it is appropriate, given that this
appears to be something of a test case, for us to follow the
LCC’s approach. Should depriving the claimants of their costs
however be unjust or inappropriat e, the parties are afforded an
opportunity to direct representations to us.
Order
(1) Except to the extent indica ted in para (2) below, the appeal
is dismissed.
(2) The application of s 2(2) of the Act is remitted to the Land
Claims Court for further conside ration in the light of this
judgment.
(3) There is no order as to costs. The parties may if so advised
within 15 days submit written repre sentations on this part of
the order.
E CAMERON
J U D G E O F A P P E A L
CONCUR:
SCOTT JA
MTHIYANE JA
LEWIS JA
PONNAN JA