The proposal by the government that section 25 of the constitution be amended to provide for expropriation without compensation amounts to little more than a proposal that theft, along with dagga smoking, be legalised. What is overlooked by both proponents and opponents of expropriation without compensation is that it is already in use in SA. International treaties on the sanctity of intellectual property have been broken, with the connivance of India, when the rights of the developers of antiretroviral medicines were abrogated in favour of generic substitutes. If SA is to be regarded as a moral country then there is no place for an "end justifies the means" morality. The National Credit Regulator and the cottage industry calling themselves debt counsellors are engaged in wholesale expropriation without compensation; even AfriForum remains silent in the face of this concerted campaign. If a combination of debt counsellors and magistrates are convinced that a person is overindebted a...
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