Have your say on land expropriation without compensation with this tool

Although the Constitution already allows for land expropriation without compensation – if it is “just and equitable” – if signed into law, this will be the first time an amendment has been made to the Bill of Rights.

The Parliamentary Committee that will review Section 25 of the Constitution, which deals with property rights, has invited the public to participate in the debate through a series of hearings and by engaging with the committee.The public can now voice their opinion by using a simple tool, developed by civic tech organisation OpenUp, in partnership with the Parliamentary Monitoring Group.

Click HERE to access the tool and to submit your say.

The committee wants all South Africans “to feel free to come and give their views and to be tolerant enough to allow those who have different views, to air their views,” committee chairperson, Vincent Smith, said in an interview with the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG).

Also read:

• Metro promises quick free farms, land and shops to residents

Using the tool, developed in partnership with the Parliamentary Monitoring Group, users are taken through a series of questions, which should take no longer than five minutes to answer. Once the questionnaire has been completed, it is then submitted to the committee via email.

The Property Clause: What are the facts?

Towards the end of February, the land reform debate was put back on the table in Parliament when the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) called for expropriation of land without compensation.

Smith said that the committee wants all South Africans “to feel free to come and give their views and to be tolerant enough to allow those who have different views, to air their views.

He emphasised that there is no “pre-cooked decision in Parliament” and that everyone involved is asked to approach the hearings as open-minded as possible.

The Committee has been tasked with reviewing section 25 – often called the “property clause” – and other clauses to make it possible for the state to expropriate land in the public interest, without compensation.

Taking into account what ordinary South Africans, policy-makers, civil society organisations and academics have to say about the issue, the committee will then make recommendations to Parliament, in the form of constitutional amendments. They have been given a deadline of August 30 by which to do all of this.

What the EFF’s proposed amendment seeks to do is remove the part that reads “subject to compensation”, but what is most notable about this particular aspect of the debate is that government has never developed a land reform policy that considers “just and equitable compensation” from any standpoint other than the “willing buyer, willing seller” principle, according to Prof Ruth Hall, of the University of the Western Cape.

At the moment the property clause applies to all forms of property, including commercial farmland, residential homes, informal land rights and property other than land (stocks and bonds, pensions and intellectual property, for instance). Whether expropriation without compensation will cover all of these will have to be addressed by the committee in the process of the debate and the recommendations that follow.

To amend the Constitution, two-thirds of the National Assembly must vote for a proposed amendment and, in the National Council of Provinces, six of the nine provinces must be for the proposed amendment. This means that 267 of the National Assembly’s members must vote for the proposed amendment. The African National Congress currently has 249 MPs, the Democratic Alliance has 89 and the EFF 25.