Constitutional change to be debated after court win
The Western Cape High Court has dismissed AfriForum's urgent application to have MPs interdicted from moving to adopt Parliament's Constitutional Review Committee report on the amendment on the Constitution to make way for land expropriation without compensation in what ANC MP Vincent Smith described as ‘a victory for South Africans’.
A News24 report, noting the committee recommended that section 25 of the Constitution be amended to allow land expropriation without compensation, says the judgment means that it can be debated and adopted tomorrow in both Houses of Parliament.
‘We are now more determined than ever to ensure that this process reaches its logical conclusion,’ Smith is quoted as saying.
AfriForum, however, says the fight is far from over.
The decision by Judges Vincent Saldanha and Nape Dolamo applies to the first part of AfriForum's case – the argument that the matter is urgent.
The second part of its case – to have the report reviewed and set aside – is still to be heard.
The gist of AfriForum's case – that the public participation process was flawed because about 176 000 of the hundreds of thousands of written submissions that the committee received were deemed duplications and were not considered in the report – failed to convince the judges.
The process will now go through a number of phases. The report recommends Parliament appoint a mechanism to draft the wording of an amendment and that this must be done before the 2019 general elections, although there is some doubt whether this will be achieved.
This process around the wording of the amendment will require another public participation process and will have to be passed with a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
