The National Conference on the Constitution held between 22 and 24 March 2023 grappled with the question of land rights, land reform and restoration that is not much closer to being resolved than it was 30 years ago.

"We have failed to inspire active citizenry in order to ensure the provisions of the Constitution are realised because they are not self enacting. Legislature has become a forum for pursuing party interests, not those of the people," says Rev Frank Chikane.

"The Constitution gives a particular mandate to ensure there is land equity in our country" minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Thoko Didiza told the national conference on the constitution on its last day as she kicked off a contentious discussion on what progress the constitution had made on 'Land Reform: Restitution and Distribution'.

Didiza said that so far about 10 million hectares have been delivered for restitution and redistribution, but this did not include people acquiring land on their own or acquisitions of land from financial awards for restitution.

'It's not the system that's flawed, it's the translation of it'

According to advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi; "It's not the system that's flawed, it's the translation of that system." He highlights that only 79,000 applications for restitution in 1998 were received by the time of closure of the applications. He said South Africa's issue of land injustice could not be resolved by restitution but only...