LAND RIGHTS ADJUDICATION: Developing Principles and Processes for ESTA and Labour Tenant Rights’ Holders

The report provides a conceptual framework for understanding the application of ‘adjudication’ to land rights verification as part of a general land administration function that includes off register rights; and outlines the motivation for developing such a system in South Africa, with some provisional ideas about systematizing and institutionalising land rights adjudication to include off-register rights.

The immediate context in which these ideas are being developed is AFRA’s Pathways Project which aims to settle the rights of farm dwellers and labour tenants whose rights are defined by the Extension of Security of Tenure Act, No 62 of 1997 (ESTA) and the Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Act, No 3 of 1996 (LTA) with the view to secure tenure and access to services in order to facilitate Pathways Out Of Poverty.

The project aims to identify and explore a range of legal and official mechanisms to achieve these goals Tenure security is regarded as key to realizing AFRAs longer term development goals, given the persistence of endemic uncertainty of Tenure rights. This report identifies ‘land rights adjudication’ as a key potential means by which the land rights of the poor, including those with extremely vulnerable Tenure on farms, can be shifted towards greater acknowledgment and certainly.

Download the Land Rights Adjudication Report here