Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane is seeking leave to appeal the Land Claims Court judgment awarding 26 farms to the Prudhoe community in Peddie on the basis that it offended some farmers’ individual property rights.

A Daily Dispatch report says the irony of the Minister standing up for individual emerging farmers in the face of a community’s successful claim was pointed out sharply last week to the court during argument on leave to appeal. The Prudhoe community’s lawyers, the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), said the Minister’s decision to directly support the competing claim of landowners against the interest of a claimant community ‘was unprecedented, surprising and disappointing at a time when government’s failures in the land reform field were under the spotlight’.

Advocates Alan Dodson SC and Lunga Siyo, on behalf of the community, claim in their heads of argument that the Minister’s appeal on behalf of private individuals was particularly surprising as the landowners had themselves elected not to oppose the community’s claim.

The 26 farms, including the Fish River Sun, were awarded to the Prudhoe Community this year.

In the application for leave to appeal, it appears the Minister’s main objection is that the court had not considered her undertaking to some individuals that they would not be displaced. These included families that had bought some of the contested land but were still awaiting title deeds. She said these land occupiers property rights had been ignored. The report notes the court reserved judgment on the application for leave to appeal.

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