Pretoria - South Africans are being urged to submit their written comments following the publication of the Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Bill 2013 and the Memorandum on the Objects of the Bill.
The Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Bill, 2013 proposes certain amendments to the Restitution of Land Rights Act of 1994 to extend the date for lodging a claim for restitution to 18 June 2018.
It also proposes to further regulate the appointment, tenure of office, remuneration and the terms and conditions of service of judges of the Land Claims Court, as well as to further amend certain provisions which are aimed at promoting the effective implementation of the act.
The explanatory memorandum of the draft bill indicates that the Restitution of Land Rights Act provides that a claim for the restitution of land must be lodged by no later than 31 December 1998, due to a number of problems experienced in the application of the restitution programme.
The evaluation indicated that the programme had been thwarted by a number of limitations, which resulted in various categories of persons and communities whose rights in land were taken as a result of colonial and apartheid laws being excluded from the restitution process.
The following three categories were identified as being excluded by the restitution laws and programme; those who could not lodge claims by the cut-off date of 31 December 1998; those dispossessed before 1913 and those dispossessed through betterment planning schemes and not allowed to lodge their claims by the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights (CRLR).
The evaluation further indicated that the research methodology that informed the restitution process was poor; that verification systems of the CRLR were inadequate, that the window period that was provided to lodge claims was too short and that the communication campaign to inform citizens about the requirement to lodge claims did not reach every corner of the country.
It is estimated that at least 3.5 million people were forcible removed from their ancestral land as a result of colonial and apartheid laws implemented after June 19, 1913.
It has been argued that this figure excludes dispossessions that were caused by betterment planning.
The estimates in the 1996 White Paper on Land Reform had excluded dispossessions caused by the implementation of betterment planning policies as it had envisaged that such dispossessions would not be addressed through land restitution programme.
When dispossessions that took place as a result of betterment and homeland consolidations (which have resulted in claims by whites) are taken into account, the figure could be closer to 7.5 million, while less than 80 000 claims for restitution were lodged before the cut-off date of 31December 1998.
Dispossessions that took place prior to 19 June 1913 are excluded from the land restitution programme by section 25 of the Constitution, which requires that redress can only be provided for dispossessions that took place after 19 June 1913.
It has been decided to amend section 2 of the act, in clause 1 of the bill to extend the date for the lodging of claims for restitution to 31 December 2018.
In clause 2 of the bill, it is proposed that section 11 of the act be amended to provide that the details of a claim must be published in the media circulating nationally and in the province in which the land is situated.
The bill proposed that section 17 of the act be amended to make the lodging of a fraudulent claim an offence.
It also proposed that section 33 of the act be amended to provide that the cost of the land as well as the claimants’ ability to use the land productively must be factors to be taken into account by the court in considering its decision.
Written submissions can be hand delivered to 184 Jeff Masemola Street, Pretoria (Old Building) or by post to the Director-General Rural Development and Land Reform, attention Mr Fanie Louw or Ms BR Naidoo, P/Bag X 833, Pretoria, 0001.
Interested people can also submit their comments by fax, 012 324 2118, or by email: restitution2018@ruraldevelopment.gov.za
or SLLouw@ruraldevelopment.gov.za or BRNaidoo@ruraldevelopment.gov.za - SAnews.gov.za
