Version 1
: Received: 10 December 2019 / Approved: 11 December 2019 / Online: 11 December 2019 (11:38:36 CET)
How to cite:
Lekunze, J.; Luvhengo, U. Is Amending Section 25 of the South African Constitution an End to the Land Reform Debate?. Preprints2019, 2019120152. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201912.0152.v1
Lekunze, J.; Luvhengo, U. Is Amending Section 25 of the South African Constitution an End to the Land Reform Debate?. Preprints 2019, 2019120152. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201912.0152.v1
Lekunze, J.; Luvhengo, U. Is Amending Section 25 of the South African Constitution an End to the Land Reform Debate?. Preprints2019, 2019120152. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201912.0152.v1
APA Style
Lekunze, J., & Luvhengo, U. (2019). Is Amending Section 25 of the South African Constitution an End to the Land Reform Debate?. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201912.0152.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Lekunze, J. and Usapfa Luvhengo. 2019 "Is Amending Section 25 of the South African Constitution an End to the Land Reform Debate?" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201912.0152.v1
Abstract
Section 25(2) of the Constitution of South Africa protects property rights and the White Paper on Land Reform demonstrate tolerance and wisdom in the application of land reform policies. The central argument to this research was whether amendment of Section 25 (2) of the constitution to allow expropriation of land without compensation redresses redistribution of land for social cohesion and political stability. The researcher argues that, currently, Section 25 of the constitution provides for expropriation without compensation but at the same time protects property rights reducing the pace of redistribution. Hence, an amendment of section 25 (2) may remove the property right clause and accelerate expropriation without compensation. But whether the removal of the property right clause and acceleration of the process of expropriation without compensation will result to equitable and fair distribution of land to the majority of landless South Africans is not certain. The study concludes that, amendment of Section 25(2) is a justifiable process and priorities must be given to equity in redistribution to the majority landless at the margins of communities and not elites. If the amendment of Section 25 (2) cannot guarantee equity in redistribution for all ill respective of race, social cohesion, political stability and economic growth, intra-racial tensions may emerge. Such tensions may further compound the land question and affects investors’ confidence in South Africa.
Keywords
land expropriation; intra-racial tension; social cohesion; political and traditional elitism; marginalised landless majority
Subject
Social Sciences, Geography, Planning and Development
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
