Land court

Welcome to the Case Law Podcast this Wednesday, 21 October.

So at the Land Court, practitioners being deprived of their fees in Motilele community.

This was the case concerning the Maruleng Farms.

So back in May 2025, the Land Court dismissed a condemnation application brought in the name of the community and awarded attorney and client costs to the commission for the restitution of land rights.

Now, the court deferred determining who should ultimately bear those costs because it was uncertain whether the community as a whole or members of the Motilele Communal Property Association CPA committee had benefited from or authorized the litigation.

Now, the community's legal representatives were Gopi attorneys and advocate Noche and advocate Matlanga.

So with everything that's been happening in the country, you may have missed the fact that the Judicial Service Commission has been having interviews to fill vacancies in the country's courts, the Superior and Specialist Courts.

So those are courts including the Supreme Court of Appeal, the Labor Court, several divisions of the High Court, the Land Court, the Electoral Court, Competition Appeal Court.

It's really been quite a run, that the JSC has had.

And of course, in light of what's been happening there with those interviews, there's also the conversation around the proposed reform.

The Supreme Court of Appeal is the second highest court in the country.

The Gauteng High Court is obviously the busiest court in the country.

Then there were specialist courts like the Labor Court and the Land Court.

And so it was a busy period.

That's in Central Queensland.

Uh, uh, uh, now thankfully the Queensland government stepped in and overturned, uh, that decision in the Land Court.

Uh, but the drumbeat has been building on this for some time, and this was a 3-2 decision of the High Court, so it's a balancing...

I just think what is needed here, and I sort of see Graham Wood, uh, from the Grattan Institute, I don't always [laughs] agree with, but he's made this point too.

It can be the parties that basically do away with the easement.

You go to the Land Court or the Superior Court.

I've done it for clients and for Haven.

And you do away with the easement to pass and repass, and they automatically get it.

Um, they are courts that deal with specific areas of the law.

If you think about the Land Court, it has a responsibility to make sure that the land reform process, uh, is, is, is running.

It makes sure that people, especially in the rural areas who have insecure tenure to land, they get access to land.

And so when you have vacancies at that court, it has a ripple effect on some of the poorest, most marginalized people in South Africa.