Parliament is processing, or is due to process, six bills that have particular significance for the rights of people living in SA’s former homelands. Three draft bills have also been published for comment. Among these are the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Amendment Bill and the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Bill, which together echo and seek to entrench important aspects of the Bantu Authorities Act that shaped apartheid.

This draft law will have a massive impact on the lives of the 18 million people who live in South Africa’s former homelands. This LARC factsheet provides an overview of key implications for rural people.

This LARC factsheet highlights lack of requirements for community consultation, lack of sanction if a Traditional Council does not keep proper records and the inadequate controls on Traditional Council's prerorgative to enter into agreements and partnerships which can facilitate elite capture of mineral resource benefits 'for the benefit of communities'.

The Ingonyama Trust was the outcome of a deal between the National Party and the Inkatha Freedom Party during the dying days of apartheid just before the transition in 1994. The Trust was established to manage land owned by the government of KwaZulu, and is currently responsible for managing some 2.8 million hectares of land in KwaZulu-Natal. The land vests in the Ingonyama (or king) as trustee, to be administered on behalf of members of specific communities.

We believe that law should in principle assist vulnerable communities in changing power relations. Law is fundamentally a ‘neutral’ set of rules that constrains power by requiring decisions and actions of those in power to comply with legal rules, rights and obligations. Unfortunately, we have seen the powerful appropriate law as a tool for only protecting and strengthening their interests.

The following is an account of a grassroots movement led by a group of NGOs and communities who went to the Constitutional Court, the highest court in South Africa, to challenge the law dealing with land claims.

They wanted the Court to declare the Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Act 15 of 2014 unconstitutional; and they won!

Research Report 

This is a judgement in the Land Claims Court which concerned the validity of land claims lodged under The Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Act 15 of 2014. This act was an amended version of the Restitution of Land rights Act 22 f 1994 which differed by extending the time frame for persons, descendants, or communities who were disposed of land after 1913 to lodge land claims.  Previously the cut-off date under the 1994 to lodge claims was 31st December 1998. Under the 2014 Act, claims could up lodged from the passing of the act until 30 June 2019.

This manual of guidelines is distributed by the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement to guide Communal Area residents and land authorities about group land rights. This guidance is official. This means that advice should be followed – as relevant to the case in point. Although formal provision for group land rights is new, the idea of holding rights collectively is well known in Communal Areas. Under customary norms, many residents already hold rights to a particular area not as individuals but as members of families and communities (or ‘groups’).

INDEX 3.0 RECENT EVENTS 4.0 CERTIFYING CUSTOMARY OWNERSHIP FOR PASTORALISTS, UGANDA 5.0 MODEL FOR RECOGNISING COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS IN KENYA 6.0 PARTICIPATORY MAPPING AS TOOL FOR SECURING RIGHTS 7.0 DEVELOPING A LAND USE MASTER PLAN, KITENGELA 8.0 SECURING WOMEN’S RIGHTS TO LAND, GARBA TULA 9.0 UPDATE ON RANGELAND OBSERVATORY 10.0 PROTECTING COMMON PROPERTY RIGHTS IN INDIA THROUGH COMMUNITY MOBILISATION 11.0 PASTORALISTS AND HUNTER GATHERERS SEEK PROTECTION IN TANZANIA’S NEW CONSTITUTION 12.0 ENDNOTES

To provide for the restitution of rights in land in respect of which persons or communities were dispossessed under or for the purpose of furthering the objects of any racially based discriminatory law; to establish a Commission on Restitution of Land Rights and a Land Claims Court; and to provide for matters connected therewith.

Kenya is the most recent African state to acknowledge customary tenure as producing lawful property rights, not merely rights of occupation and use on government or public lands. This paper researches this new legal environment. This promises land security for 6 to 10 million Kenyans, most of who are members of pastoral or other poorer rural communities. Analysis is prefaced with substantial background on legal trends continentally, but the focus is on Kenya’s Community Land Act, 2016, as the framework through which customary holdings are to be identified and registered.