LAND EXPROPRIATION
CAROL PATON: Focus on mode of amendment as ANC gambles on outsmarting EFF
All three main parties aim to gain maximum political capital from the land issue but not everyone will win in the end
Now that the ANC has decided that section 25 of the constitution must be amended to make land expropriation without compensation an explicit option, the next frontier is what that amendment will look like. How it is done will affect the extent to which property rights are compromised and under what circumstances. As usual, politics rather than good sense will play a major role in the final outcome. All three main parties are aiming to make maximum political capital. But the stakes are high — particularly in the main race between the ANC and EFF — and not everyone will win in the end. But first, the modalities. The clues to what the ANC hopes to see are in the wording of the statement made by President Cyril Ramaphosa last week. In that statement it is acknowledged that as the ANC had said at its land summit, "a proper reading of the constitution … enables the state to effect expropriation of land with just and equitable compensation and without compensation, in the public interest"....
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