Legal Articles and Guides

Expropriated Zimbabwe farmers have served notice of a R1.9bn claim against the South African Government for its ‘complicity’ in the fate of the former land owners. Rapport says this follows the Constitutional Court judgment in December that former President Jacob Zuma’s unlawful actions contributed to the disbandment of the SADC Tribunal which was the farmers’ last hope for compensation.

The ANC in the Western Cape has asked Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane to investigate the alleged racial incident at Cape Town’s Clifton Fourth beach in December. A furore erupted over Christmas after it emerged beachgoers were instructed to leave the beach. Beachgoers, including ANC provincial secretary Faiz Jacobs and his family, were instructed to leave the beach after members of a private security company, PPA, allegedly imposed an 8pm curfew, according to a report in The Citizen.

Directors of the Australian-owned Mintails could face charges after a parliamentary investigation found that the company is R460m short on the money it owes to clean up the environment at its mining operations near Krugersdorp, says a Business Day report. Sparked by an Oxpeckers investigation into Mintails’ failing 1 715ha gold surface re-treatment operation, Parliament’s Committee on Mineral Resources launched its own inquiry, uncovering illegal activities and lax oversight by the company and the Department of Mineral Resources.

An order of the Western Cape High Court brought protest action by Reclaim the City (RTC) on Site B in the Cape Town inner city to an abrupt end this week. According to a News24 report, as the housing activists were settling in for their first night in shacks they had erected that morning, police officers arrived and read the interdict out loud.

If cowboy Will Rogers’ practical advice “Don’t wait to buy land, buy land and wait” has you looking for a property to buy this Festive Season, don’t miss out on an invaluable source of relevant information – the title deed. What you find in the title deed of your prospective purchase could make or break your decision to buy it, and it will certainly impact on how much you want to offer. We’ll tell you what a title deed is, why it’s important to check it before you make an offer, and what you should look for once you have it.

Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini’s Ingonyama Trust was on the receiving end of a decision by the Land Claims Court, when it ruled his ‘subjects’ were entitled to hold land in their names if they so wish. According to Rapport, the Ingonyama Trust intervened in a successful land claim by Zulu communities over 11 000ha of land adjacent to the trust land.

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’.

Mitchells Plain residents who have been fighting a social housing company in order to keep the roofs over their heads have come out victorious in the Constitutional Court, says a Cape Times report. The court unanimously found that the Cape Town Community Housing Company's (CTCHC) cancelling of instalment sale agreements of 12 Wood Ridge residents to be unlawful.

Fresnaye businessman Allan Tavakoli has lost his legal challenge to block the construction of the newest ultra-luxury development along the Atlantic Seaboard. A Cape Times report says the SCA has dismissed Tavakoli’s appeal against the building plans of a R1bn apartment complex called Bantry Hills.

The KZN High Court (Durban) has granted an order against the provincial Department of Social Development and the eThekwini Municipality after the electricity for the Enduduzweni Centre for the Disabled in Umlazi was disconnected. GroundUp says the centre had been without electricity for two weeks, with residents using fire to prepare meals.

Historically disadvantaged Karoo residents have been vindicated by a landmark SCA judgment which found they have a right to access land their ancestors first occupied more than 200 years ago, says a Cape Times report. Rural labourers and schoolchildren in Grootkraal, Oudtshoorn, were confronted with losing the land after Kobot Business Trust bought it in 2010, and decided to develop the land into a game farm for commercial purposes.

A full Bench of judges will hear AfriForum's case in which the lobby group is seeking to bar Parliament from debating a report calling for the amendment of the Constitution to allow for expropriation of land without compensation. The matter will be heard in the Western Cape High Court (Cape Town) on Thursday.

Judge Jody Kollapen, of the Western Cape High Court, yesterday ordered the Minister of Rural Development & Land Reform to start work immediately on a restitution plan for people evicted from District Six during apartheid. A News24 report notes the court heard that the claimants had lodged their application by the end of the first land restitution deadline of 31 December 1998.

Leading attorney Billy Gundelfinger is celebrating success in a fight with the City of Cape Town and its contracted developers to stop the sale of a heritage site in Maiden’s Cove. A Weekend Argus report notes Gundelfinger was an applicant in his personal capacity and also as a committee member of the Clifton Bungalow Owners Association.

A landmark ruling not only gives the Eastern Cape community of Xolobeni the right to refuse mining in the pristine Wild Coast area but will extend this power to any community under customary law, according to a Business Day report. More than 15 years of fierce dispute over the potential mining of the titanium-rich dunes in the impoverished area culminated in Judge Basson ruling yesterday that Mining Minister had no lawful authority to grant a mining right to an Australian company unless ‘full and informed’ consent had been obtained from the surrounding community.