The Constitutional Court refused direct leave to appeal with costs in the case of SA Riding for the Disabled Association (Sarda) against a Land Court order regarding a 15-year Constantia land restitution claim by the Sadien family.

Sarda has called the decision an injustice, reports the Cape Argus.

The matter concerned Erf 2274, Constantia, which was dispossessed from the Sadien brothers in 1963 due to the Group Areas Act. In 2013, the Land Claims Court ordered the transfer of state-owned Erf 142, which Sarda occupied, to the Sadien family.

Sarda said: ‘The Constitutional Court’s judgment of 13 November has perpetuated the injustice suffered by Sarda, whose rights were compromised by an illegally obtained Land Court order in 2013. In 2013, the Land Court unlawfully awarded supposedly vacant state land to an individual claimant, Sediek Sadien, contravening its own rules and the Restitution Act. The 13 November … Constitutional Court judgment is flawed.’

According to court papers in 2017, the Constitutional Court granted Sarda’s appeal to intervene but limited its interest as a lawful occupier solely to ‘just and equitable compensation’ under section 35(9) of the Restitution of Land Rights Act.

It found Sarda had no interest in challenging the land transfer itself.

In 2024, the Land Court granted the Sadien family trusts leave to intervene and substitute themselves as the rightful claimants but it dismissed Sarda’s counter-application to amend or rescind the 2013 land transfer order, on the basis that it was bound by the Constitutional Court’s 2017 finding limiting Sarda’s interest to compensation.

Sarda sought direct leave to appeal the 2024 Land Court decision, arguing the 2017 Constitutional Court order on standing was interlocutory or per incuriam.

Full Cape Argus report

Judgment