Cape Town – Twenty years after their attempts for get their land began, the Prudhoe community in the Eastern Cape have finally claimed victory as the Constitutional Court awarded them the restitution of 26 farms.
The ruling comes after two trials in the Land Claims Court, three appeals to the Supreme Court of Appeal and two trips to the Constitutional Court.
“This has been a painful and drawn-out struggle to reclaim the land we were forcibly removed from in the 1980s,” community leader Gladman Tom said.
He said they never wanted money, just the land they had lived on for generations and could continue to live on for many years to come.
The community lodged their claim in December 1998 in terms of the Restitution of Land Rights Act, claiming restoration of 26 farms between the Fish and Mpekweni rivers, from which they were forcefully removed by the Ciskei government during the late 1980s.
The Legal Resources Centre (LRC) represented them in the matter and said the claim was contested by the Mazizini community, who claimed 85 farms, which include the 26 claimed by the Prudhoe community.
The minister of Rural Development of Land Reform and the Mazizini community appealed to a full Bench of the Land Claims Court, but their leave to appeal was dismissed on August 3, 2018.
The Mazizini community then petitioned the Supreme Court of Appeal directly for leave to appeal, and that appeal was dismissed on June 2.
The Mazizini community again appealed to the Constitutional Court, and this was dismissed on November 20.
“Much of the legal fight has been caused by the competing Mazizini community’s employment of ‘Stalingrad tactics’ which saw repeated, spurious and vexatious appeals being lodged,” the LRC said.
“They were often aided and abetted by a Land Claims Commission that gave its unwavering and irrational support to the Mazizini community despite the absence of any historical evidence to underpin a legitimate land claim by the Mazizini, and thanks to the courts, that claim has finally been rejected as baseless,” the LRC said.
Tom said they hoped it would not be necessary for more court battles to get the farms transferred.
“We hope that the government now does everything necessary, and with great speed,” he said.
The Department of Agriculture, Land reform and Rural Development did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.
In May, the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights said there were still 7 743 outstanding land claims from 1998.
In its five-year strategic plan, the commission was set to settle 2 150 and finalise 2 200.
However, due the impact of Covid19, they said took their target of settling 454 claims in the current financial year to 244 and its initial target for number of claims finalised from 479 to 295.
In the meeting, Minister Thoko Didiza said: “Sometimes it is the applicants who delay the start of land negotiations by not providing all the documentation in due time.”
Cape Times