Judgement has been reserved in the land expropriation matter at the High Court in Cape Town between Afriforum and Parliament.
An interim order will be granted on Friday morning at 10:00.
Afriforum is seeking relief to halt the final processing of the Constitutional Review Committee Report which recommended that Section 25 of the Constitution be amended to expropriate land without compensation.
Afriforum wants a full judicial review of the committee proceedings.
Afriforum lawyer Willie Spies described the arguments by the two parties as robust.
“One can never pre-empt what the court will do. So, we will have to wait for Friday morning at 10 o’ clock. The judges indicated that they will hand down an order tomorrow and then give their reasons later. So, whatever the order will be, it’s not clear to us. We do have confidence in the courts and we do have confidence in the judges. There was a robust exchange of ideas. Very good legal arguments were vented today and we’ll deal with whatever comes to us.”
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African National Congress member of the Constitutional Review Committee, Vincent Smith, says he is confident that the High Court in Cape Town will not stop Parliament from continuing to process the committee report on land expropriation, which was adopted two weeks ago.
The debate on the report is scheduled for the fourth of December in the National Assembly and the NCOP.
Smith says, “I think on the basis of the debates and the discussions and the arguments that were raised, we are very confident that the court will allow Parliament to continue with its business. We are hopeful that the ruling will be that Parliament will continue with its business and anything else can be dealt with by the lawyers.”
Members of the African National Congress (ANC), United Democratic Movement (UDM) and National Freedom Party (NFP) serving in the Constitutional Review Committee say they are confident that the High Court in Cape Town will rule in the favour of Parliament and the committee regarding the land expropriation matter.
UDM Member of the Committee Mcedisi Filtane is confident that Afriforum’s bid won’t be successful.
“For starters, we have been vindicated. We have always said we don’t think that Afriforum and the other political parties like the DA, Freedom Front Plus, ACDP and Inkatha (IFP) have got any case. And according to what was tabled here in front of the judges, it became very clear that they have got no case. They are just using the courts to drive their political agenda basically. And as such, I still believe that come tomorrow 10 o’ clock the judgment that will be handed down by the judges will be in the form of dismissing this whole big fiasco.”
