The DA has taken legal action to overturn the Expropriation Act, arguing that the law was adopted unconstitutionally.
The party made this claim in an application that was filed at the Western Cape High Court, arguing that five out of the seven provinces that supported the act in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) did not follow proper legal processes to get approval from their provinces.
Helen Zille, the chairperson of the DA federal council, says the act is unclear and contains contradictions in several sections, making it unconstitutional.
According to the documents, only the Western Cape voted against the Expropriation Bill in an NCOP plenary session on March 18, 2024. This is out of seven provinces, and the North West was not present.
Provinces in question include Gauteng
“However, five of the seven provincial delegations that voted in favour of the Expropriation Bill had unlawful final mandates,” Zille said.
“In the result, only two provincial delegations lawfully voted in favour of the bill, failing to meet the required five votes contemplated in Section 65(1)(b) of the constitution.”
According to the court documents seen by Sunday World, the provinces in question include Limpopo, the Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, and the Northern Cape.
Zille said the final mandates were all unconstitutional because the provincial legislatures did not approve them in a full assembly meeting.
Instead, the speakers of those legislatures made the decision on their own.
She said that the speaker of the Northern Cape provincial legislature signed a final mandate supporting the Expropriation Bill without a date.
Full assembly meeting was not held
She also pointed out that the Gauteng provincial legislature did not hold a full assembly meeting to approve a final mandate, even though the mandate included a date and stated that the legislature supported the bill.
She said: “Each of these final mandates violates the first principle of the Mandating Act discussed above, which stems from Section 65(2) of the constitution.
“Only the provincial legislature — sitting in plenary — may confer final mandates. Speakers of the provincial legislatures cannot confer final mandates. Accordingly, the final mandates are unlawful and unconstitutional.
“As I explained above, even if one of the above final mandates was unlawful, the Expropriation Bill would have been passed unconstitutionally.”
Zille continued: “But in this case, five final mandates at the NCOP select committee were conferred unlawfully.
“The effect is that only two provinces validly voted for the Expropriation Bill, short of the constitutional requirement of five.”
