SPEECH TO THE WESTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL PARLIAMENT BY BRETT HERRON, GOOD MEMBER AND SECRETARY-GENERAL
24 June 2021
PROPOSED SECTION 25 AMENDMENT IS UNNECESSARY AND DIVISIVE
Speaker, expropriation without compensation, or expropriation with nil compensation, is already the law in South Africa.
There is no need for the amendment to Section 25 of the Constitution.
While the DA threatens to challenge, in the courts, expropriation with nil compensation the Constitutional Court already interpreted the Constitution, as far back as 2002, as making provision for expropriation without compensation. The Constitutional Court said:
“…that there are appropriate circumstances where it is permissible for legislation, in the broader public interest, to deprive persons of property without payment of compensation”
(First National Bank of SA Ltd vs The Minister of Finance CCT 19/01)
The matter is settled law. It has been for 19 years. It is settled by legal precedent articulated by the ConCourt.
In fact the Constitution Eighteenth Amendment Bill is so unnecessary it literally says so. The preamble to the bill says that the amendment is intended to make “explicit that which is implicit”.
Land reform is a compelling and urgent issue.
In the debate about EWC no one is arguing that this constitutional obligation is progressing appropriately.
There is consensus amongst all political parties that progress has unacceptably slow and chaotic.
However those who are blaming the constitution for retarding progress are lying.
It is unfortunate that land reform, so urgent and so necessary, has been hijacked as a tool for political gain – by those claiming its being retarded by the constitution, by those who have used the debate to hide their failings, and by those, who claim to be constitutionalists, who have whipped up unnecessary anxiety and fear based on lies.
The proposed amendment adds nothing to the task that all governments are required to tackle – redressing an unsustainable and indefensible land ownership pattern in South Africa.
The amendment doesn’t amend the law and doesn’t warrant the hysteria being instigated by those who are “permanently negative”.
Ends…