The battle over the state’s bid to process new land claims while it has not settled those brought 20 years ago is headed for a fresh round at the Constitutional Court, says a report in The Star. Admitting to having failed to comply with the court’s order to re-enact legislation within 24 months to enable processing of new claims, Parliament has pleaded for an extension of the deadline. The state sought to be allowed to process the 163 383 new claims it accepted between 2014 and 2016.

Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga’s 2016 ruling interdicted processing of these claims, saying they were accepted based on invalid legislation. The ruling went in favour of the Land Access Movement of SA (Lamosa), which sought to have the state ordered to settle all old claims. The Land Claims Commission revealed 5 757 old claims remained unprocessed by March this year.

The commission fell short of the R35bn required to buy the land from its wrongful holders. It was allocated just about R10bn for this purpose. Phumzile Ngwenya-Mabila, chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Rural Development and Land Reform, asked the Constitutional Court to grant Parliament eight more months to finalise the Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Act.

But in her papers, Lamosa’s Constance Mogale hit back against Ngwenya-Mabila’s arguments. Mogale said the plea was tantamount to ‘asking this court to do nothing for eight months’. She brought a counter-application which asked the Constitutional Court to order the state settle old claims before processing the new ones. The report notes the Constitutional Court will hear the matter on 6 November.

Full report in The Star (subscription needed)