Dispossession and Access to Land in South Africa. An African Perspective

Akomaye Yanou

Description

This book deals with the conceptualization of access to land by the dispossessed in South Africa as a human right. Yanou examines the country's property model in the context of the post apartheid constitutional mandate to redress the skewed land distribution of the past. The book reviews the strengths and weaknesses of the land restitution process as well as the question of the payment of just and equitable compensation for land expropriated for restitution. It also reviews the phenomenon of land invasion and quality of access to land enjoyed by the South African black woman under the present dispensation. Yanou argues that the courts have, on occasions, construed just and equitable compensation generously. This approach has failed to reflect the fact that what is being paid for is land dispossessed from the forebears of indigenous inhabitants. In a South Africa that lost most of its ancestral land during colonialism and apartheid, access to land for the dispossessed should not be equated with the protection of property acquired under apartheid. Getting it right would entail truth and reconciliation with the collective dispossession suffered by South African blacks.

Sujets

• Law

Informations

• Publié par: Langaa RPCIG
• Date de parution: 15 mars 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789956715879
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Dispossession and Access to Land in South Africa: An African Perspective

Michael A. Yanou

Francis B. Nya mnjoh Stories from Abakwa Mind S earching The Disillu sioned African The Convert Souls Forgotten Married Bu t A vailable

Titles byL an g aaRPCIG

Dibussi Tande No Tu rning Back. Poems of Freedom 1990-1993

Kangsen F eka Wa kai Fragmented Melodies

Ntemfac Ofege Namondo. Child of the Water Spirits Hot Water for the Famous Seven

Emma nuel Fru Doh Not Yet D am ascus The Fire Within Africa`s Political Wastelands: T he Bastardization of Cameroon O rika’Badan

Thomas Jing Tale of an African Woman

Peter W uteh Vak unta Grassfields Stories from Cameroon Green Rape: Poetry for the Environment Maju nga T ok: Poems in Pidgin English Cry, My Beloved A frica No L ove L ost

Ba'bila Mutia Coils of Mortal Flesh

Kehbuma Langm ia Titabet and the Taku m beng

Kw o Victor Elam e Musinga, edited by Roselyne M. Jua The Barn The T ragedy of Mr. No Balance

Ngessim o Mathe M utaka Building Capacity: Using TEFL and African Languages as Development-oriented Literacy Tools

Milton Kr ieger Cameroon's S ocial D emocratic Front: Its History and Prospects as an Opposition Political Party, 1990-2011

Samm y Ok e Ak om bi The R aped Am ulet The Woman Who A te Python Beware the D rives: Book of V erse

Susa n Nkw entie Nde Precipice

Francis B. Nya mnjoh & Richard F onteh Ak um The Cameroon G C E C risis: A T est of Anglophone Solidarity

Joyce Ashunta nta ng & Dibussi Tande Their C ham pagne Party Will End! Poems in H onor of Bate Besong

Emma nuel Achu Distu rbing the Peace Rosemary Ek osso The H ou se of Falling Wom en

Peterkins Ma nyong God the Politician

Mwalim u G eorge Ngwa ne The Power in the Writer: Collected Essays on Cultu re, Dem ocracy & D evelopm ent in Africa

John Per cival The 1961 Cam eroon Plebiscite: Choice or B etrayal

Albert Azeyeh Réussite scolaire, faillite sociale : généalogie m entale de la crise de l’Afriqu e noire francophone

Aloysius Ajab Am in & Jean-L uc D ubois Croissance et développem ent au Camerou n : d`u ne croissance équilibrée à u n développem ent équitable

Carlson Anyangw e Imperialistic Politics in Cam erou n: Resistance & the Inception of the Restoration of the Statehood of Sou thern Cameroons

Bill F. Ndi K`Cracy, T rees in the S torm and Other Poems

Kathr yn Toure, Ther ese Munga h Shalo Tchom be & Thierr y Karsenti ICT and C hanging Mindsets in Education

Charles Alobw ed’E pie The Day G od Blinked

G.D. Nya mndi Babi Yar Sym phony Whether L osing, Whether Winning: Essays in Political Realism

Sam uel E belle Kingue Si Dieu était tou t de chacun?

Alobw ed’E pie The Day G od Blinked

Igna sio Maliza ni Jim u Urban A ppropriation and Transformation : bicycle, taxi and handcart operators in Mzu zu, Malawi

Justice N yo’ Wakai: Under the B roken S cale of Justice: T he Law and My Tim es

John E yong M eng ot A Pact of Ages

Igna sio Maliza ni Jim u Urban A ppropriation and Transformation: Bicycle Taxi and Handcart Operators

Joyce B. Ashunta nta ng Landscaping and C oloniality: The Dissem ination of Cameroon A nglophone Literatu re

Jude Fokwang Mediating Legitimacy: Chieftaincy and D em ocratisation in Two A frican Chiefdoms

Micha el A. Ya nou Dispossession and Access to Land in S outh A frica: an African Perspevctive

Tik um M bah Azonga Cup Man and Other Stories

Dispossession and Access to Land in South Africa an African perspective

Michael A. Yanou

LangaaResearch & Publishing CIG Mankon, Bamenda

Publisher: LangaaRPCIG (LangaaResearch & Publishing Common Initiative Group) P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Province Cameroon [e-mail] www.langaapublisher.com

Distributed outside N. America by African Books Collective [e-mail] www.africanbookscollective.com

Distributed in N. America by Michigan State University Press [e-mail] www.msupress.msu.edu

DISCLAIMER

ISBN:9956-558-76-1

© Michael A. Yanou 2009 First published 2009

All views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Langaa RPCIG.

Acknowledgement his book is a revised version of my PhD thesis in law submitted to cou T rse of my studies at Rhodes and its revision into a book. I must first the Law Faculty at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. I received valuable assistance from many sources in the express my gratitude to God for sustaining me during my time at Rhodes and at Cambridge University, UK where part of the writing was done as a visiting research fellow at the Centre of African Studies. I am indebted to my supervisor Prof. Richman B Mqeke at Rhodes University for encouraging me to develop an interest in research into the conceptualization of access to land in South Africa as a human right. In addition to his professionalism while supervising this study, his humane approach put me in good stead to complete this work in record time. I am equally grateful to Prof. Francis Nyamnjoh of CODESRIA in Dakar for his valuable assistance during the revision of my thesis into a book. Similarly, I should also thank the anonymous reviewer whose observations and insightful suggestions helped to significantly improve the quality of the book. Special thanks go to the Centre of African Studies, Cambridge University for offering me a generous fellowship to do research that gave me the opportunity to access the university’s excellent facilities, meet accomplished scholars and share in the institution’s tradition of excellence. And at a personal level, I must mention the key contribution of my immediate family to the completion of this book. It is thanks to the commitment of my wife Nicol Musi Yanou that I succeeded in completing the study. Apart from her unceasing emotional support, she typed and formatted the entire work. I wish to thank her for the sacrifices she and my children Michael Lobga Yanou, David Tchami Yanou and Dani Yanou endured during my often-long absences from them that were necessitated by the demands of my research.

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter One Land: history and pespectives

Chapter Two Land Dispossession

Chapter Three Land rights as human rights

Chapter Four The constitutional property clause property in the interim constitution

Chapter Five Accessing land in post-apartheid South Africa

Chapter Six Compensation

Chapter Seven Land redistribution

Chapter Eight Conclusion and recommendation

Bibliography

Notes

[vii]

ix

1

9

23

33

49

67

77

91

101

111

Preface new book on land law in the new constitutional dispensation in South Africa from an African perspective is to be welcomed. The A Dr Yanou has based his book on material submitted for his doctoral book consists of 8 chapters and is 140 pages in length. thesis at Rhodes University in 2005 entitledAccess to Land as a Human Right:The Payment of Just and Equitable Compensation for Dispossessed land in South Africa. Yanou traces the notion of dispossession from the Frontier Wars of th the 19 Century in the Eastern Cape in which the Chiefs who participated lost not only their chieftainships but also large tracts of ancestral land. This was followed by dispossession that occurred during the apartheid era of land removals, particularly as a result of the notorious Land Act of 1913. He also discusses various land tenure reform legislation. Yanou argues that, in a country like South Africa that lost most of its ancestral land during colonialism and apartheid, access to land for the dispossessed should not be equated with the protection of property acquired under apartheid. He also touches on the controversial issue of aboriginal title in the light of case law. On this topic the reader should also see the following: G Pienaar “Aboriginal Title ofIndigenous Ownership: What is in a Name? (2)” 2006 THRHRI; T.W Bennett & C.H. Powell “Restoring Land:The Claims of Aboriginal Title, Customary Law and the Right to Culture” 2005 Stellenbosch Law Review 431. Yanou covers in detail the controversial question of compensation. I believe that no “last word” has yet been written on the issue. See also A.J. van der Walt “Reconciling the State’s Duties to Promote Land Reform and to Pay ‘Just and Equitable’ Compensation for Expropriation” (2006) 123 SALJ 23. The book reviews diverse issues related to the phenomena of dispossession such as the notion of land invasions, which have been a subject of protracted litigation in post-apartheid South Africa, women’s access to land and theBheCase. This well-written book covers case law up to 2005 and should be commended for being so thoroughly researched.

Professor R B Mqeke Faculty of Law Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa

[ix]