A legal battle may be looming over ANC plans to change the Constitution to make it easier to expropriate land without paying for it. Land expropriation without compensation could violate the founding provision in section 1 of the Constitution, which guarantees human dignity, rights and freedoms, outlaws racism and ensures the supremacy of the rule of law, according to Robert Vivian, a professor of finance and insurance at the University of the Witwatersrand’s School of Economic and Business Sciences.

It can only be amended with the backing of 75% of lawmakers in the National Assembly, he said, according to a Fin24 report.

‘I can’t see an argument anyone could put up against this,’ Vivian said at a function hosted by the Free Market Foundation in Johannesburg yesterday. If that’s correct, it’s unlikely amendments will make it through the current Parliament, where opposition parties that are against constitutional changes control more than a quarter of the 400 seats.

Elections are scheduled for next year, and it’s unclear whether the ruling ANC and like-minded parties will then be able to secure the majority they need. Pierre de Vos, a law professor at the University of Cape Town, argues that section 25 of the Constitution, which deals with land rights, can be changed by two-thirds of lawmakers without violating any other provisions on condition there isn’t arbitrary expropriation and correct procedures are followed.

Full Fin24 report