Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
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A crisis in restitution cases: an imbalance in the scales of justice

South Africa's land restitution landscape is plagued by a three-decade-long crisis in the Land Court, where justice often depends on available resources rather than the merits of…

Unresolved: Spokes Sithole, who was born in the same year as Nelson Mandela, 1918, is one of the original
claimants in the R1 billion Mala Mala land claim. He died at 108. Photos. Lucas Ledwaba

Fruit of freedom withers under broken land deal

The death of Spokes Sithole at 108 exposes the broken promise of one of South Africa’s largest land restitution settlements, where freedom and land ownership have not translated…

The Moravian Church
has congregations around the world, with more than a million members. South Africa, with 103  000 members, has one of the largest congregations. (Photos: Jonathan Hendricks)

Moravian Church legal battle at heart of indigenous land rights

Descendants of the indigenous people who lived on the land, predominantly Khoi and slaves, want to be able to control and govern the land their forefathers worked

In South Africa, your music is your property, and the law supports you

Stealing a song is like stealing a car; treat music rights as tangible property

In South Africa, your music is your property, and the law supports you

(constitutionhill.org.za)

Mafora’s ‘legal fictions’ nullify constitutional supremacy

In systems of constitutional supremacy, constitutions may introduce legal fictions, but legal fictions may not be introduced into constitutions, like the Expropriation Act does

US President Donald Trump. (File photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Trump order cutting aid, offering sanctuary to Afrikaners is premised on factual inaccuracies, SA says

The department of international relations and cooperation said the order failed to recognise South Africa’s ‘profound and painful history of colonialism and apartheid’

Influence: Several political parties have voiced concern about overreach and lack of accountability in the judiciary. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy/M&G

The Expropriation Act is necessarily unconstitutional

Expropriation law is not a tool of punishment or reparation, it is a tool of social improvement that can only be used under exceptional circumstances

Powerful: Electricity pylons in Kibuye, Rwanda, part of the KivuWatt power plant, which produces electricity from gas trapped in the depths of Lake Kivu. Photo: Luke Dray/Getty Images

Why the allure of the ‘Rwanda Model’ is misplaced

Dropping democracy for aspirant autocrats who will put everything in order with a big stick might not be all it’s cracked up to be

An ANC volunteer gets ready to erect posters of party president, Cyril Ramaphosa, in Johannesburg, prior to South Africa’s May 29 elections.
(Delwyn Verasamy, Mail & Guardian)

South Africa needs a ‘no-alition’ confidence-and-supply arrangement for government stability

The loss of an outright majority for the ANC should not be considered a panacea which promises to alleviate all our political and economic woes

Women are entitled to own land

Too many laws and customs in too many African countries still treat women as minors