The Land Claims Court has dismissed an application for leave to appeal its order awarding the restitution of 26 farms, including the Fish River Sun hotel and golf course, to the Prudhoe community.
Both land reform minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and the Mazizini community sought leave to appeal the decision. The Mazizini community had claimed 85 farms, including the 26 awarded to the Prudhoe community.
Nkoana-Mashabane took up cudgels on behalf of a single farmer, ironically claiming the award of his farm to the community robbed him of his property rights.
But acting judge Heidi Barnes said the person in question had failed to oppose the claim in the first place and the court was therefore entitled to find in favour of the community.
The irony of the minister standing up for one individual in the face of a community’s successful claim was sharply criticised on Monday by the Legal Resources Centre, which acted for the Prudhoe community, saying: “The minister’s stance was in direct opposition to the interests of a successful claimant community numbering more than 1,000 people, and is disappointing at a time when land reform and transferring land ownership to communities is being touted as a government priority.”
Barnes also dismissed the Mazizini community’s claim for the 55 farms over which there was no competing claim.
She said the claim did not meet the threshold requirements in the Restitution of Land Rights Act and ruled there was no prospect that any other court would find differently on the facts.
The Prudhoe community lodged their claim in December 1998 in terms of the Restitution of Land Rights Act, claiming restoration of farms between the Fish and Mpekweni rivers from which they were forcibly removed by the then Ciskei government during the late 1980s.
They were moved to the Prudhoe farm, where they were provided with only a vacant piece of land. The community received no compensation from the former Ciskei government for the land they had lost and were not provided with any assistance to rebuild their lives at Prudhoe farm.
The 26 farms they were removed from remain largely unused except for grazing.
The LRC said it had taken 20 years for the claim to be determined.
“One hundred and nine of the original 124 heads of households have died in poverty during the last 20 years without seeing the outcome of their claim.
“For the remaining claimants and their children, the judgment and subsequent dismissal of the appeal is the first step in starting to restore the dignity and livelihoods that were lost as a result of the inhumane apartheid-era forced removals.”..