Gaza kingdom defeat

THE Constitutional Court handed down a judgement last week that dismissed an appeal against a judgement of the North Gauteng high court that the Shangaan people’s Gaza kingdom did not exist anymore and that Mpisane Eric Nxumalo had no right to the Vatsonga Machangani throne.

According to the Constitutional Court’s judgement, there was no legal justification to set aside the high court’s decision.

The high court found last year that the Shangaan Gaza kingdom disintegrated decades before 1922 and sent the tribe scattering into areas like Bushbuckridge, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

In its ruling, the Constitutional Court based its judgement of the case on the Commission on Traditional Disputes and Claims’ report, which dismissed Nxumalo’s claim mainly on the basis that the kingdom of Gaza disintegrated between 1894 and 1897, before September 1922, the date from which the commission was mandated to investigate South African kingships.

“In these circumstances, the applicant has failed to show that the commission’s factual findings were unreasonable or irrational,” stated the high court judgement sheet, dismissing Nxumalo’s appeal to have the findings by the commission set aside.

However, the Constitutional Court ruled in Nxumalo’s favour when it upheld an appeal against the order of the high court concerning the president’s decision to overlook the Shangaan kingdom, after the commission presented its final findings.

The president apparently used the new act which gave him powers to decide whether a tribe deserved a kingdom or not, instead of using the previous act that was in use when Nxumalo’s claim was lodged in 2006.

“We place our hope on the fact that president Jacob Zuma will now have to make his decision based on the previous act and that the outcome would be favourable to us,” Ernest Nkanyane, spokesperson for Nxumalo, said.

He said it was wrong for the commission to base its findings on the fact that the Shangaan kingdom disintegrated, since every tribe disintegrated at some point during colonialism.

“According to requirements for applying for kingship, there has to be a kingdom that existed. In our case it was the Gaza kingdom which disintegrated in 1895,” he said.