Critical analysis of transformative interventions redressing apartheid land discrimination and injustices in South Africa: From land segregation to inclusivity

Published date01 December 2021
DOI10.1177/13582291211025136
Date01 December 2021
Subject MatterArticles
Article
Critical analysis of
transformative interventions
redressing apartheid land
discrimination and injustices
in South Africa: From land
segregation to inclusivity
Precius Sihlangu
1
and Kola Sola Odeku
2
Abstract
In 1994, as soon as South Africa became a democratic country, the first step taken by the
new democratic government was to introduce various transformative constitutional and
legislative interventions that sought to redress all the past apartheid discriminatory laws.
This paper looks at these interventions by critically showcasing how they are being used
to transform and reform land by ensuring inclusivity and equity in South Africa where
the previously denied, disposed and segregated Black majority have access and are
benefitting broadly.
Keywords
Apartheid, land dispossession, land injustice, transformation, inclusivity, South Africa
1
Department of Mercantile and Labour Law, Faculty of Management and Law, School of Law,
University of Limpopo, Polokwane, South Africa
2
Department of Public and Environmental Law, Faculty of Management and Law, School of Law,
University of Limpopo, Polokwane, South Africa
Corresponding author:
Kola Sola Odeku, University of Limpopo, Polokwane 0727, South Africa.
Email: kooacademics@gmail.com
International Journalof
Discrimination and theLaw
ªThe Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/13582291211025136
journals.sagepub.com/home/jdi
2021, Vol. 21(4) 328 –356
Sihlangu and Odeku 329
Introduction
The apartheid era in South Africa had an adverse impact on the issue of access to land.
The government system at the time promulgated laws that legalised land dispossession
from the indigenous owners (Maylam, 2017). As a result, Black South Africans were
dispossessed of their land and forced to relocate to non-arable land. Black people could
no longer farm nor grow crops in the areas to which they were relocated, and conse-
quently lost their source of living. For a number of years, Black people suffered hunger
and starvation while living on overcrowded non-arable land (Mthembu, 2013). Due to
the level of poverty, Black people had to go and look for jobs at the white people’s farms,
mines and residences in order to fend for their families (Wilson, 2011). Although a
substantial number of Black people were employed on the white farms and in firms,
they were not making enough money to properly fend for their families nor to take their
children to school (Thompson, 2008). The reality was that Black people were living from
hand to mouth, a poverty-stricken lifestyle (Aliber, 2003).
The dispossession of land did not only mean the physical removal from possession of
the land belonging to the Black people, but it alsomeant a change in social and economic
status (Madlingozi, 2017). Black people began to experience poverty after they were
dispossessed of their land, and accordingly, their means to make a living were further
diminished with the dispossession of land (Atuahene, 2014). Hence when South Africa
became a democratic country in 1994, landrestitution and land redistribution became the
main focus of the South African government in order for Black people to achieve equal
social and economic status as their white counterparts (Hall, 2004). Redressing the previ-
ous injustices became a focus point of the ruling party, the new democratic government,
and this necessitated the adoption of land reform programmes such as restitution, land
tenure and redistribution of land (Yingi,2021). But prior to the adoptionof the land reform
programmes, a numberof laws were passed to abolish the pre-existingapartheid era laws.
Hence, the Abolition of Racial Based Land Measures Act 108 of 1991 was promulgated to
do away with the provisions of NLA, NTLA and its successors GAA.
More importantly, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996 (Constitu-
tion) contained provisions addressing the issue of land (Section 25). A number of pro-
gressive legislation on issues of land redistribution were also promulgated in line with
the Constitution (Worden, 2011). This paper examines how these progressive interven-
tions are being used to promote the productive use of redistributed land by the land
beneficiaries and society at large.
The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996
The South African government has shown its obligation and taken action to eliminate the
inequalities and injustices that find their origins in the historical periods by initiating
wide-ranging land reform programmes with a strong constitutional back up (Kloppers
and Pienaar, 2014). These programmes consists of three pillars. namely: restitution, land
redistribution and tenure security (Kloppers and Pienaar, 2014). This was backed by the
provisions of section 25 of the Constitution which provides that, the state is under the
constitutional duty to take ‘reasonable and other legislative measures, within its
2International Journal of Discrimination and the Law XX(X)

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