Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Categories
UFS News Media Release Research
Years
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Months
January February March April May June July August September October November December
Previous Archive
15 January 2019 | Story Charlene Stanley
COURT Case
From the left: Prof Danie Brand, Director of the Free State Centre for Human Rights, with his co-counsel Anna-Marie de Vos SC and their legal opponents Lawrie Wilkin and Uday Kiran Naidoo during the Grootkraal case in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein.

 

What rights do black farming families have on land they obtained during a period when restrictive legislation made it impossible for black people to own land?

This was the legal issue at stake in the matter of Grace Maledu v Itereleng Bakgatla Mineral Resources. In this case, 13 families of the Lesetlheng Village Community in the North-West Province bought a farm a hundred years ago. Apartheid-era legislation prohibited them from owning land, and the land was held in trust for them by the state.

Their descendants were recently threatened with eviction, after a multi-national mining company obtained mining rights on the land.    

Free State Centre for Human Rights Getting Involved

Lawyers for Human Rights in Pretoria instructed Professor Danie Brand, Director of the Free State Centre for Human Rights on the Bloemfontein Campus, to act as co-counsel for the community in the High Court and the Constitutional Court.

The Constitutional Court has now ruled in favour of the Lesetlheng community, upholding their rights to continue farming.  The judgment effectively protects them against the mining company’s attempt to evict them. It also establishes the important principle that a holder of a mining right may not commence with mining on land, unless it has made a reasonable effort in good faith to reach an agreement with the actual people who use and occupy that land.

“This constitutes an important development in our law,” explains Prof Brand. “It establishes that nobody should have absolute control over land and that different rights to and interests in land can overlap without one trumping the other.”

Assisting Farm Workers

The centre also recently  assisted a community of farm workers in the Western Cape who were threatened with eviction from a portion of the Grootkraal Farm where they have conducted church, school, and other community activities for the past 200 years. Prof Brand acted as co-counsel in this case before the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, where judgment was delivered in their favour.

These two cases herald the re-establishment of a legal services division within the Free State Centre for Human Rights, giving effect to their community-engagement mandate.

 

What rights do black farming families have on land they obtained during a period when restrictive legislation made it impossible for black people to own land?

This was the legal issue at stake in the matter of Grace Maledu v Itereleng Bakgatla Mineral Resources. In this case, 13 families of the Lesetlheng Village Community in the North-West Province bought a farm a hundred years ago. Apartheid-era legislation prohibited them from owning land, and the land was held in trust for them by the state.

Their descendants were recently threatened with eviction, after a multi-national mining company obtained mining rights on the land. 
 

Free State Centre for Human Rights Getting Involved

Lawyers for Human Rights in Pretoria instructed Professor Danie Brand, Director of the Free State Centre for Human Rights on the Bloemfontein Campus, to act as co-counsel for the community in the High Court and the Constitutional Court.

The Constitutional Court has now ruled in favour of the Lesetlheng community, upholding their rights to continue farming.  The judgment effectively protects them against the mining company’s attempt to evict them. It also establishes the important principle that a holder of a mining right may not commence with mining on land, unless it has made a reasonable effort in good faith to reach an agreement with the actual people who use and occupy that land.

“This constitutes an important development in our law,” explains Prof Brand. “It establishes that nobody should have absolute control over land and that different rights to and interests in land can overlap without one trumping the other.”

Assisting Farm Workers

The centre also recently  assisted a community of farm workers in the Western Cape who were threatened with eviction from a portion of the Grootkraal Farm where they have conducted church, school, and other community activities for the past 200 years. Prof Brand acted as co-counsel in this case before the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, where judgment was delivered in their favour.

These two cases herald the re-establishment of a legal services division within the Free State Centre for Human Rights, giving effect to their community-engagement mandate.

News Archive

“To forgive is not an obligation. It’s a choice.” – Prof Minow during Reconciliation Lecture
2014-03-05

“To forgive is not an obligation. It’s a choice.” – Prof Minow during the Third Annual Reconciliation Lecture entitled Forgiveness, Law and Justice.
Photo: Johan Roux

No one could have anticipated the atmosphere in which Prof Martha Minow would visit the Bloemfontein Campus. And no one could have predicted how apt the timing of her message would be. As this formidable Dean of Harvard University’s Law School stepped behind the podium, a latent tension edged through the crowded audience.

“The issue of getting along after conflict is urgent.”

With these few words, Prof Minow exposed the essence of not only her lecture, but also the central concern of the entire university community.

As an expert on issues surrounding racial justice, Prof Minow has worked across the globe in post-conflict societies. How can we prevent atrocities from happening? she asked. Her answer was an honest, “I don’t know.” What she is certain of, on the other hand, is that the usual practice of either silence or retribution does not work. “I think that silence produces rage – understandably – and retribution produces the cycle of violence. Rather than ignoring what happens, rather than retribution, it would be good to reach for something more.” This is where reconciliation comes in.

Prof Minow put forward the idea that forgiveness should accompany reconciliation efforts. She defined forgiveness as a conscious, deliberate decision to forego rightful grounds of resentment towards those who have committed a wrong. “To forgive then, in this definition, is not an obligation. It’s a choice. And it’s held by the one who was harmed,” she explained.

Letting go of resentment cannot be forced – not even by the law. What the law can do, though, is either to encourage or discourage forgiveness. Prof Minow showed how the law can construct adversarial processes that render forgiveness less likely, when indeed its intention was the opposite. “Or, law can give people chances to meet together in spaces where they may apologise and they may forgive,” she continued. This point introduced some surprising revelations about our Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

Indeed, studies do report ambivalence, disappointment and mixed views about the TRC. Whatever our views are on its success, Prof Minow reported that people across the world wonder how South African did it. “It may not work entirely inside the country; outside the country it’s had a huge effect. It’s a touchstone for transitional justice.”

The TRC “seems to have coincided with, and maybe contributed to, the relatively peaceful political transition to democracy that is, frankly, an absolute miracle.” What came as a surprise to many is this: the fact that the TRC has affected transitional justice efforts in forty jurisdictions, including Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Cambodia and Liberia. It has even inspired the creation of a TRC in Greensborough, North Carolina, in the United States.

There are no blueprints for solving conflict, though. “But the possibility of something other than criminal trials, something other than war, something other than silence – that’s why the TRC, I think, has been such an exemplar to the world,” she commended.

Court decision cannot rebuild a society, though. Only individuals can forgive. Only individuals can start with purposeful, daily decisions to forgive and forge a common future. Forgiveness is rather like kindness, she suggested. It’s a resource without limits. It’s not scarce like water or money. It’s within our reach. But if it’s forced, it’s not forgiveness.

“It is good,” Prof Minow warned, “to be cautious about the use of law to deliberately shape or manipulate the feelings of any individual. But it is no less important to admit that law does affect human beings, not just in its results, but in its process.” And then we must take responsibility for how we use that law.

“A government can judge, but only people can forgive.” As Prof Minow’s words lingered, the air suddenly seemed a bit more buoyant.

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept