Accessibility The Bill places a significant emphasis on making the Land Court accessible to the public . The Bill will allow the Minister of Justice ( in consultation with the Chief Justice ) to designate places for hearings to be held , like community centres or schools , to make the court more accessible for people located in rural areas .
Judges will also be empowered to refer cases to Legal Aid so that an unrepresented party can be provided with a lawyer . The Bill states that Legal Aid must provide a lawyer if substantial injustice would result otherwise . Parliament must also provide Legal Aid with sufficient funding to ensure that unrepresented people can receive legal representation in appropriate cases .
General The Bill also proposes that the Land Court be given the power to order the Commission for the Restitution of Land Rights to conduct an investigation and provide a report on any case referred to the Court . When a case is taken on appeal to the Land Court of Appeal , the Land Court can make any appropriate order , which will operate until the appeal has been finalised .
The Bill retains several provisions that already regulate proceedings in the Land Claims Court . For example , the Land Court ( like the Land Claims Court ) can accept evidence that would not normally be admissible in court , such as hearsay evidence or expert evidence by anthropologists
62 MARCH 2022 SA Real Estate Investor Magazine or historians on land dispossession . The Land Court retains the power to order the state to pay a land claimant compensation or to set conditions that must be fulfilled before dispossessed land can be restored .
Existing Land Claims Court Currently , the Land Claims Court has exclusive jurisdiction to decide various issues regarding claims for the restitution of dispossessed land in terms of the Restitution of Land Rights Act . When the Land Claims Court was created in the 1990s , the idea was that most land claims would be finalised relatively quickly . It was therefore meant to be a temporary court with temporary judges .
The reality is that restitution processes are taking far longer than was anticipated . The Land Claims Court is struggling to settle the growing backlog of land claims . These delays have caused significant frustration and dissatisfaction for land claimants . According to a memorandum on the Bill and the Advisory Panel Report , a major cause of the backlog is the lack of permanent judges on the Land Claims Court and insufficient capacity and staff to process land claims efficiently and timeously .
Furthermore , an appeal against a judgment of the Land Claims Court can only be decided by the Supreme Court of Appeal ( SCA ). In practice , an appeal to the SCA is a lengthy process .