DA to block promulgation of controversial Expropriation Bill
According to the Minister of Public Works, the controversial Expropriation Bill is set to be re-introduced to Parliament in January 2011. He made this point in his budget vote speech, delivered yesterday. The Bill was previously shelved by Parliament in 2008 on the grounds that it was unconstitutional - it vested power in government officials to decide on the amount of compensation for expropriated land, rather than the courts. Should this provision not be removed when the Bill is re-introduced, the Democratic Alliance (DA) will block any attempts at its ratification.
The DA fully supports an equitable and sustainable land reform process as it is imperative that South Africa's skewed patterns of land ownership are urgently modified. However, this process must be carried out within constitutionally set parameters and must not allow for arbitrary land dispossession.
The Constitution states:
"Property may be expropriated only ... (a) for a public purpose or in the public interest; and (b) subject to compensation, the amount of which and the time and manner of payment of which have either been agreed to by those affected or decided or approved by a court."
The placing of the decision-making power in terms of the awarding of compensation in the hands of government officials constitutes a full-on-attack on two of the most fundamental principles in our Constitution - the rights to recourse to the courts and the right to be protected from arbitrary expropriation. Should this provision be allowed, it will result in the stripping the protection of the courts from anyone, who owns any form of property, from having the state take it away without sufficient reason.