Umhlaba: The Land

One of my favourite topics is the issue of land in South Africa. A recent judgment by the Supreme Court of Appeal reinforced the criticism by land activists that government’s decisions seem to favour land owners.

The Right to Property enshrined under section 25 of our Constitution is certainly one of the most contested rights in South Africa. It provides for the right to property and precludes the state from depriving a private owner of his/her property without compensation. Put differently, the Constitution requires that when a claim for land is made (usually by a previously oppressed individual), the land owner must be compensated by the State. When determining compensation, the court must apply a “just and equitable” test, taking into account the factors listed in s 25 (3) (a) – (e) of the Constitution, and intervene and make a decision where there is no agreement regarding the amount of the compensation.

It is further provides that, “the amount of compensation and the time and manner of payment must be just and equitable, reflecting an equitable balance between the public interest and the interests of those affected, having regard to all relevant circumstances”. Interpretation of this law should entail a consideration of: a) The current use of the property; b) The history of the acquisition and use of the property; c) The market value of the property; d) The extent of direct state investment and subsidy in the acquisition and beneficial capital improvement of the property; and e) The purpose of the expropriation.

In a recent land claim judgment, the Supreme Court of Appeal, in the case of Uys N.O and Another v Msiza and Others (1222/2016) [2017] ZASCA 130 (29 September 2017), awarded the amount of R1,8 million as, “just and equitable for the acquisition of the property”. The SCA overturned an earlier judgment in the Land Claims Court which found that the value of the compensation to be paid to the land owners was R1,5 million, which was R300 000 less than amount valuated by the State’s expert. Instead, the SCA found that the valuation by the State expert took into account some of the factors listed in the Constitution and could not find any justification for deducting R300 000.

Mr Msiza and his family resided on the farm as labour tenants since about 1936. On 5 November 1996, Mr Msiza’s father successfully lodged a claim for an area of land situated on the farm, to be awarded to him on the grounds that he had been a labour tenant in terms of Land Reform (Labour Tenant) Act of 1996. A Trust became the owner of the farm on 9 May 2000. The Trust had acquired the property for a price of only R400 000 for the entire farm (352.5033ha) while being aware that the Msiza family occupied the land. The low cost of the land was probably influenced by the fact that Mr Msiza was residing on the farm and had lodged a claim against the entire farm.

The Msiza family was eventually awarded only 45.8522ha of the entire land, which was 306.6511ha less than the land initially claimed by the family. There had been no change on the actual use of the land and no significant investment made by the Trust on the land, including the land awarded to the Msiza family, since it was purchased by the Trust. The Trust wanted R4,36 million as compensation for the 45.8522ha of land awarded to the Msiza family, which was rejected by the Land Claims Court.

However, I question whether the R1,8 million valued by the State as compensation is just and equitable compensation and in the public interest, given the fact that; firstly, the Trust had purchased the entire piece of land for a sum much less than the market value at the time; secondly, the Trust purchased the land well aware of land claim; thirdly, there had been no change to the use of the land and no significant investment on the land; and fourthly, the Msiza family were only awarded 45.8522ha of the land, 306.6511ha less than the land initially claimed by the family.

Section 25 of our Constitution was not intended to fund the commercial aspirations of private landowners. The section exists to ensure that public money is distributed fairly, considering the Constitution’s commitment to rectifying the racially discriminatory distribution of land, which occurred over three centuries in our appalling history.

I therefore ask: is it in the public’s interest to compensate and benefit private individuals who acquire property, well aware of a land claim from a person or community, as was the case in the Msiza land claim?

Lungelo Baleni – ­2017 Bertha Justice Fellows

The Annual Bertha Convening is supported by the Bertha Foundation. We would like to thank them for their support of the next generation of young human rights lawyers. Read more about the Bertha Foundation and Bertha Justice Fellows here: http://berthafoundation.org/

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Reflections on Fellowship and Contesting the Constitution

Photo: Tshepo Madlingozi 

The fast pace of legal practice and constant demand on your faculties and capacity in the public interest sector is often a distraction from gaining perspective about our growth as young social justice lawyers. The Bertha convenings serve as important periods for pausing and stretching our minds.

The first year of the fellowship is a wonderful time of terror and optimism. A time of learning the ropes and mastering the tone of the profession. During your second year you are given the opportunity to take on more responsibility in a practice, and this added freedom is an essential part of understanding your own abilities, potential ethics and limitations. As the conclusion of the fellowship approaches and we make the transition to alumni, many of us grapple with the reality of legal practice, the lure of social justice by academia and reinventing our role in the social justice arena.

As young social justice lawyers we are in a unique position to begin to experiment with hybrid careers and opportunities. There is an overwhelming sense that a new path must be forged and exciting long-lost entrepreneurial inklings must be called upon going forward to continue to effect change. The South African Bertha convenings serve as an important pool of ideas from which the fellows can draw from in order to advance new ideas about social justice and our roles within this sector.

We were particularly challenged at this year’s convening titled, “Contesting Power, Privilege and the Constitution” as it was an opportunity to hear the voices we tend to usurp or minimise in the course of litigation. The convening also galvanised fellows and alumni to question the paradigms in which we operate as public interest lawyers in the pursuit of social justice.

We work in a context where South Africa’s dehumanising history still presents itself in our thinking around development and notions of social justice. When Tshepo Madlingozi, a jurisprudence lecturer at the University of Pretoria, asked us about our use of emancipatory tools, many of us came to realise that we had accepted many imposed norms as unassailable purely because we were in the business of doing good.

Madlingozi’s argument was that human rights and, necessarily, social justice are concepts rooted in ‘coloniality of being’. That is, “South Africa’s contemporary social justice sector’s ahistorical and colour-blind fetishisation of human rights, as part and parcel of the economy of recognition – incorporation – distribution, both conceals and entrenches this teleological whiteness.”[1]

This begs the question for us public interest lawyers, operating under the banner of social justice, of whether we are truly effecting change in a post-apartheid South Africa, or whether we unwittingly perpetuate the notion of dehumanising “othering”. In essence, what the convening required of us was to recognise the real struggle of those we purport to represent. It asked us to understand what it was to be poor, black, female identifying, LGBTIQ+, migrant, marginalised, landless, silenced and forgotten.

In as much as Madlingozi encouraged a shift toward the recognition and appropriation of a liberation project, our claim on the advancement of human rights is still framed by a colonial understanding of humanity and law. Thus, if we remain impervious to the paucity of human rights “speak”, we may lose legitimacy in the eyes of those who continue to suffer “dehumanisation and social death”[2]

What about the Constitution? As mentioned above, the theme of the convening envisioned contesting the Constitution. One of the issues that we grapple with in the South African context debate, is our unquestioning defence of the Constitution. On the ground, the lofty ideals in the Constitution scarcely equates to the rectification of injustice. The protection of ill-gotten gains (property) daily reminds the dispossessed, our clients, of their social deaths and social injustice.

What’s more is that civil society in South Africa, of which we are part of and partner with, has been venerated beyond reproach – thus the “liberation project”, as Madlingozi puts it, cannot take form in the face of ahistorical disarming discourse that it deems social justice. As we graduate from the fellowship we will continue to debate and challenge social justice which constitutes temporary relief for those with insecure title and “developing the normative an remedial apparatus for imposing duties on organs of State.”[3] We will also continue to question whether we, as public interest lawyers, can attain the humanising project within the framework of our Constitution.

Mpho Raboeane and Christine Grobler – ­2017 Bertha Justice Fellows

The Annual Bertha Convening is supported by the Bertha Foundation. We would like to thank them for their support of the next generation of young human rights lawyers. Read more about the Bertha Foundation and Bertha Justice Fellows here: http://berthafoundation.org/

[1] T Madlingozi “Social Justice and Neo-Apartheid Constitutionalism”(2017) 28 Stell LR 137.

[2] Ibid at 139.

[3] S Liebenberg “Socio-economic rights beyond the public private law divide” in M Langford, J Dugard, B Cousins and T Madlingozi (eds) Socio-economic Rights in South Africa: Symbols or Substance?(2014) 63 64 as in T Madlingnozi “Social Justice and Neo-Apartheid Constitutionalism” 145.

Acceptance of the University Gold Medal

On acceptance of the University Gold Award for the Legal Resources Centre, presented by the University of the Witwatersrand, 23 March 2017

• Speech by Janet Love, National Director

On behalf of the Legal Resources Centre, I would like to convey our appreciation to the Council of Wits University for the honour and distinction bestowed upon us through this Award.

Wits is the alma mater not only of Arthur Chaskalson and Felicia Kentridge – two of the founders of the LRC – but also of many others who have made the organisation what it is today – including stalwarts of our struggle like George Bizos, the LRC’s internal Senior Counsel, and Thandi Orleyn, the Chairperson of our Board of Trustees, who are here with us tonight. Wits is also the trusted custodian of some of the LRC’s archives and papers. In addition, our work has been enhanced through the partnerships and working relations we have forged with many components of the University including the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, the Wits Law Clinic, the former Wages Commission with its links to the Industrial Aid Society which served as one of the first Advice Offices supported by the LRC, the Sociology of Work Programme (SWOP), the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE) and the Students for Law and Social Justice – to name just a few. So this Award and the recognition it embodies has special significance for us.

Thank you also for affording me this opportunity to make a few remarks at this graduation ceremony. Firstly, congratulations to the students! Whatever your individual or collective views are, or whatever the extent of your activism while on campus: you will look back at this period and know that you were part of the turbulence – a turbulence that may develop into the winds of change. Engagements with and within the #FeesMustFall movement have seen the emergence of the so-called ‘flat-line’ leadership structures rather than the channelling of discussion through traditional structures that were used when I was a student. In this different ‘flat-line’ formation may lie the seeds of much innovation in terms of engagement and organisation, and some of this may be enabled by innovations in the social media space.

However, currently there are multiple processes (the Fees Commission, the Higher Education Ministerial Task Team, the Mandela Foundation’s Higher Education National Convention) and I wonder how much students have been able to engage thus far amongst themselves about these issues or within all or any of these processes. The linkages from one campus to the next seem tenuous at best. These are the challenges of organisation: so although current organisation may be innovative and responsive to the current mood, it may simultaneously make the development of alternatives and finding the pathways forward additionally difficult. Discussions around decolonisation and critical race theory which also do not, in themselves, resolve the debate about free education for all versus free education for the poor and the related discussion about what thresholds or mechanisms could or should be used to determine poverty. And there are many other critical issues affecting students ranging from access to bandwidth and data to student living conditions.

Much as I believe that the values of our Constitution are a guide to action and include a clear imperative for fundamental transformation of our society, exactly what this transformation actually looks like – and how we get there – are issues that require organisation and leadership at all levels and in all spaces. It is our individual and our collective responsibility. There is no script. There is no single answer. There is no one path to bring about the Constitutional promise and to ensure that inequality is not exacerbated by the options we choose. This is as true for the right to water as it is for the right to education.

The travesty against justice that was colonialism and the crime against humanity that was apartheid are with us today in many ways. We can point to change and progress but this cannot disguise our failures. For example, we have failed to effect the land restitution and land reform programme. We cannot deny that we have failed to hold accountable those who treated the Truth and Reconciliation Commission with disdain – they have not been brought to justice and reparations have not been made. Inequality has grown and exclusion is something that is not openly, actively and constantly reckoned with as it needs to be.

The LRC seeks to advance inclusion and equality; to secure dignity and development for all; and to enable our democracy: through using the law to make our Constitutional framework deliver on its promise to all in South Africa. To this end, we provide free legal services for vulnerable people including: those who suffer discrimination by reason of race, class, gender, disability or through historical, social and economic circumstances; and those who stand up against abuse of power and corruption. To these ends, we use a range of strategies to bring about creative and effective solutions. The law and our use of it, is only one part of the picture. What we do cannot happen without the organisation of and the leadership and mobilisation by the clients we represent. And we too need to do more to transform. This includes the demographics within our own organisation and making more consistent progress towards transforming the legal sector including ensuring that there is a greater consciousness with regard to who from the members of the Bar are briefed in our matters. And it also involves being more creative about the way we engage in the broader public space.

The rule of law cannot exist in a media bubble; it needs the argument surrounding a case to be built in the public mind; it needs the solutions to be sought and articulated; it needs a dominant narrative to be developed in order to make the processes of the law and objectives of any particular case to be clearly understood and to have a real prospect of being meaningful in improving the day to day lives of ordinary people. The law needs to secure this influence to enable it to be a real check and balance on those with political and economic power. Yet, who dominates the narrative? Is there adequate transparency and information? Is there conscious effort to engage, persuade and convince? These issues and questions are as relevant to each and every one of our cases as they are to the debates around higher education.

We need to be conscious of the fact that all institutions are fragile. While we see political parties – and particularly those in power – cannibalise their own support, we watch as some seek to unravel the social compact we achieved at the dawn of our democracy without laying any ground for alternative ways to take forward people’s aspirations.

As there is repeated failure to hold those in authority accountable, we know that this is compounded by corruption, the manipulation of public institutions and the hollowing out of critical areas of governance. And in this way, the peoples’ trust in institutions – all institutions – begins to break down. And once broken, this trust is difficult to restore – regardless of who is in office.

We are not unique. There is a loss of credibility the world over in the ability of the State to deliver. This has led to the politics of negation, disruption and often to fragmentation. It is an unknown that stands before us as we let institutions break down without visualising what comes instead and this makes it both scary and dangerous: scary because building is a more painstaking process than destruction; and dangerous because into a vacuum can come the rhetorical noise of an empty drum which promises all but does not offer alternatives or deliver anything.

It is into this vortex that those who have just completed your studies are stepping. Impatience is not enough. Leadership, facts and figuring out how something can be achieved – these are vital.

“Facts matter,” said the former US Vice-President, Joe Biden. Yet without taking hold of the narrative and without doing more than confining our engagement to 144-character twittering exchanges, facts will continue to elude us and the public consciousness.

How do we locate the law in the context of fact? This is important for our work and for ensuring that the promise of our democracy is realised. For example, the Constitution is unambiguous about the need for land reform and land restitution and explicitly provides for the option of expropriation. The Constitution takes the view that any consideration of compensation – it does not say that compensation is a requirement – must reflect “an equitable balance between the public interest and the interests of [all] those affected” – including those who had their land forcibly removed and those who have occupied it in the period since. It requires all relevant circumstances to be taken into account, including the history of the acquisition, the use of the property over time and the extent of direct state investment and subsidy.

So what has gone wrong? Why has there been so little progress? Why has this, ‘the Property Clause’, been used to enrich a few at the expense of many? Why has it excluded rather than included? We should all ask. But there is simply no factual basis for blaming the Constitution and the wording of the clause itself. By doing so, we miss the point. We allow the real reasons that relate to the failures in implementation and often to corruption to be obscured thereby delaying the urgently needed correction.

The Constitutional structures and principles are there to serve people, and in particular poor people. We need to remember that the judiciary, too, is a fragile institution and cannot and should not bear the burden of failures of other organs of State; nor should it have to grapple with the failures of those who approach the Court without having given adequate thought to the practical challenges of implementation; to the challenges of oversight; to challenges that accompany the processes for enforcement – all these need to be crafted as options to be addressed as part of proposed remedy. Not just in Court but in our society and in debates and matters beyond.

Judicial independence needs independent lawyers who recognise that the legal profession is under an obligation to serve the public interest. Lawyers and all graduates and professionals cannot serve only the elite in our society and services have to be available to all who need them. This is part of what needs to become embedded in all of our missions and imaginings.

We have a Constitution which limits the power of the State from interfering with the rights of the individual and which also addresses the regulation of private power. In this, we really lead in the world. It is a Constitution which expressly empowers the state to address and redress the consequences of centuries of dispossession and discrimination. It requires inclusion. It is a Constitution which provides the basis and the imperative to make this our individual and collective responsibility. So let us get on with it – let us all move ahead with the business of using our Constitution to the fullest extent possible in everything we do.

Thank you.

Should fracking happen in South Africa?

Photo: No Fracking Signs at Prince Albert – by Danie van der Merwe (Flikr)

The threat of fracking has been imminent in South Africa for almost a decade. But South Africa is just not ready for fracking. There are many detrimental effects of this mining activity on communities and the environment.  The regulatory requirements to mediate these effects are also not present. Allowing fracking to take place in South Africa would simply be disastrous.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a technique used to extract gas from deep underground, which involves digging wells up to four kilometres deep. A mixture of water, sand and chemicals is injected at high pressure to crack shale rock formations and release the gas, which is then brought to the surface.

History of Fracking in South Africa

Fracking is not a new practice and dates back to the 1860s in the United States but started being used commercially in 2009. Currently, almost 95 percent of US states use fracking techniques. In South Africa, formal interest in fracking began in 2008; the potential areas of interest being in the Karoo and parts of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). Since then, there have been a number of applications for exploration rights from companies such as Bundu Oil and Gas, Shell SA and Falcon Gas and Oil.

The threat of litigation around the imperfections of this process, and around the absolute lack of investigation into the technology and its impacts, resulted in the Minister of Mineral Resources, Susan Shabangu, declaring a moratorium on the issue of exploration licences in April 2011. The Department of Minerals and Resources (DMR) was instructed to set up a task team to explore the implications of fracking, the feasibility of the gas extraction, as well as its impact on the environment.

At that time, no timeline was given for when research would be conducted. The Minister commissioned a report from a group of different government agencies to inform her about whether fracking should go ahead or not. The problem with the task team responsible for the report was that it excluded representatives from key government departments. Only certain voices were heard in the report. This omission does not reflect administrative justice, a right to which we are entitled under the Constitution.

In September 2012, a little over a year later, the moratorium was lifted. Cabinet endorsed recommendations of the report on the lifting of the moratorium and mandated the Minister of the DMR to hold a series of public consultations with interested and affected stakeholders to provide further details.

Possible pollution events associated with fracking

Fracking typically requires 1000-2000 large truckloads of water, which means thousands of wells will require truckloads of water to be transported to the fracking site at significant environmental cost. Most of South Africa’s surface fresh water (98%) has already been allocated to existing users. This raises the question of how the fracking industry will source the millions of litres of water it will need to undertake its operations.

Fracking entails the pumping of toxic chemicals at high pressure, with water and sand, into underground shale rock formations. Some of the fracking liquid returns to the surface after use, and has to be disposed of without causing harm to the environment. The fracking liquid often consists of both toxic and radioactive sludge, which must be transported to hazardous waste management sites.

The most serious environmental concern related to fracking is that of ground water contamination. The potential risk to ground water comes from two sources: the injected water (water and chemicals) and the released natural gas. The water used in drilling shale gas is fused with sand and chemicals (corrosive inhibitors, surfactants, iron control chemicals, biocides, friction reducers and scale inhibitors). When these are injected down the well, there is a strong possibility of polluting underground water. Freshwater reserves can also be contaminated when the fluid is spilt at the site of the wells or in other accidental spills.

Fracking can release gas and / or vapour into the atmosphere. These emissions are either of original additive chemicals, entrained contaminants from the shale formation or the methane released by the fracking process. There is an ongoing debate about the relative leakage of methane into the atmosphere from the exploitation of shale gas in comparison to the emission rate from conventional gas. This is potentially important because a high leakage rate might mean that methane released into the atmosphere from shale gas extraction could have a higher net greenhouse gas footprint, than, for example, coal. Fracking operations should, therefore, seek to minimize all emissions into the atmosphere and monitoring processes need to be actively enforced.

Lastly, shale gas development involves continuous activity conducted over a sustained period of time (this can vary considerably, but is often several years) over the entire course of a day, seven days a week. The noise of compressors, generators and drilling, extensive truck movements, intrusive un-natural lighting overnight and the release of bad smelling chemicals can have significant negative health and well-being impacts on nearby communities, especially in the context of quiet rural and semi-rural areas that also relatively densely populated.

Do we have the regulatory requirements to undertake fracking?

What are the regulatory conditions that currently exist that would affect fracking? The Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) is the central statute that governs applications for and the granting of rights and permits to conduct shale gas extraction. The requirement for the submission and approval of an Environmental Management Plan (EMP) for an exploration and production right allows for the potential environmental impacts of shale gas extraction to be investigated prior to such activities being conducted.

If waste will be generated by any activity, an assessment as to whether the National Environmental Management Water Act (NEMWA) applies to the activity will need to be made and, if required, any requisite waste management licenses applied for and obtained prior to starting any activity requiring the management of the waste.

Should any company succeed with exploration, a water use license in terms of the National Water Act is to be secured through applications for individual or integrated water use licenses. Various factors will have to be considered for the granting of the licence – one of which is the availability of resources.

How effective are these measures to mitigate the impacts of fracking?

Should the South African government decide to issue exploration and production rights for shale gas fracking, the least we can expect is an appropriate regulatory regime that is implemented, monitored and enforced. The current fracking regulations and the current pollution control laws do not achieve this.

We do not have the capacity or will at local – and national government level to do the basics of waste management, such as collecting solid waste, preventing dumping, closing down illegal mining operations and controlling sewage and industrial pollution. We simply will not be able to handle the extra burden of fracking waste once fracking activities begin.

Fracking can be extremely water-intensive, depending on the precise techniques used. This may pose risks in the KZN Midlands, and other parts of the country which are currently experiencing drought conditions.

In theory, it seems that South Africa’s pollution control laws do allow for mining; however, due to the nature of fracking, the current pollution control laws may not be sufficient to deal with the detrimental and long-term effects of fracking.

The environmental impacts of conventional mining in South Africa have never been regulated effectively. To the extent that appropriate regulations do exist, their implementation has been ineffective. As a result, mining has had, and continues to have, significant negative impacts on the environment. Many of these impacts, such as acid mine drainage, cannot be easily remedied and will continue to impose heavy financial, health and environmental costs on society for the foreseeable future.

I would argue then, that with the current regulatory environment, as well as the potential harm caused by fracking, the government will need to rethink its regulatory regime before allowing fracking to happen.

by: Shaun Bergover, candidate attorney

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