The Law on South Africa explained – and why it is so igniting Donald Trump

South Africa’s President Kirill Ramaphos is in the center of a political fiery storm after approving the law that gives the state the powers of expoming some private land without compensation to the owners.

The law, which is still due to be implemented, has attracted the anger of US President Donald Trump, who views it as discrimination against white farmers.

Right political parties and lobby groups in South Africa also oppose this, saying that they will challenge the law on expropriation-as a law-in court on the grounds that it threatens ownership.

The Ramaphos government states that the law provides for payment of compensation in the vast majority of cases – and changes are necessary to increase ownership to black land.

Most private agricultural land still belongs to white people.

When Nelson Mandela came to power more than 30 years ago, having completed the racist system of apartheid, he promised that it would be corrected thanks to the program of eager, eager land management-but criticism say it turned out to be too slow and too expensive.

In rare circumstances, this would be the land that was needed for “public interests”, BBC legal experts said.

According to South Africa’s law firm, Werksmans lawyers have suggested that this would be mainly happened, and only in relation to the land reform program.

Although it can also be used to access natural resources such as minerals and water, the firm, According to his experts in this field, Boulelva Mabas and Thomas Carberg.

Mabas and Carberg said the BBC that, in their opinion, productive agricultural land could not be expropriated without compensation.

They said any expropriation without compensation – known as EWC – can only happen under several circumstances:

• For example, if the owner did not use the land and kept it for “speculative purposes”
• Either if the owner “gave up the land without showing control of it, despite the fact that he was able to do it enough.”

The owners will probably still receive compensation for buildings on Earth and for natural resources, lawyers said.

Mabas and Carberg added that the EWC “was not directed to rural land or agricultural land, and could include land in urban areas.”

However, in cases where compensation is paid, the rules must change and owners can get less money.

The plan is that the owners receive “just the rest”-the retreat from the higher “market value” that they still received, said Mabas and Carberg.

The government paid compensation for the market value, despite the fact that it “disagreed” with the Constitution adopted after the White Minority rule ended in 1994.

The lawyers said that all expropriations had “extensive procedural requirements for justice”, including the owner’s right to go to court if they were not satisfied.

Transfer from market value compensation will also be extended to the land exposed to the “public purpose”-for example, the construction of state schools or railways.

It wasn’t a major dispute, perhaps because it is “Hardly a new concept” – a point made by a lawyerA legal web web is run by law sciences from all over the world.

“For example, the US Constitution provides that the government can seize private property for public use until” just compensation “is provided,” it added.

The government hopes that.

Expert at the University of Western Case Prof. Ruth Hall reported the BBC that more than 80,000 land claims remain uncertain.

In the eastern regions of South Africa, many black people work on farms for free – in return they are allowed to live there and store the animal on the land of the owners, she said.

The government wants to convey the ownership of this land to the workers, and it was “unfair” to expect that it would pay the market value, Professor Hall added.

Over the past three decades, the government has used existing powers to expropriation of property- with less market value compensation- in less than 20 cases, she said.

The new law was aimed at ease and cheaper to restore the land to black people who were “dispossessed” from it during the rules of white and forced to be “long -term tenants” because they could not possess the land, Professor Hall added.

“It’s a trade,” she said.

But she doubts that the government will go forward by following the law in the foreseeable future, as the “political price” has become too high.

The academician was referring to the fact that Trump opposed the law, saying that he discriminated against white farmers, and their land was “confiscated” – the government denied the accusation.

In February, Trump reduced assistance in South Africa, and in April he announced a 30% tariff for the goods and agricultural products of South Africa, although it was later stopped for 90 days.

Then a sad oval office happened last month, when Trump was ambushed by Ramaphos with video and printouts of stories claiming that white people were persecuted – most of it was discredited.

Like Trump, the second largest party in the coalition government of Ramaphos, the Democratic Alliance (DA), opposes the legislation.

In a statement on May 26, the party states that its higher leadership rejected the concept of “zero”.

However, he agreed with the concept of fair compensation, not compensation for the market value, adding that it should be “considered by the court”.

Amazing but Yak Kleinhans from the movement of solidarity, the influential lobby group Afrikaner, said that while the new law could “destroy” some enterprises, and he did not believe that it would lead to “large -scale expropriation of agricultural land”.

“I don’t see in the formulation of this text what it will happen,” ” He stated that in a recent discussion at an agricultural exhibition It is held in the free province of South Africa – where a large number of conservative African farmers live.

The Association of Owners of South Africa stated that the “zero” to the owner who occupied the land for speculative purposes will “irrationally”.

“There are many landowners whose sole purpose of business is to think on the ground. They do not receive land for free, and they have significant costs,” the association said, adding that the law will undoubtedly be “richly verified” in the courts.

Mabas and Carberg stated that one of the reasons was that the EWC concept was “legal absurdity” because “its own legal definition of expropriation is a requirement for payment of compensation”.

However, the lawyers noted that the alternative opinion was that the Constitution of South Africa “clearly admits that in some circumstances it would be fair and fair to make the compensation zero.”

South Africa’s public works, Ding McFerson, defended the legislation, violating the ranks with his party, Da.

In fact, he is responsible for the new legalization and, at the discussion board, he explained that while he had some problems about the law, it was a “dramatic improvement” of the previous law on expropriation, with greater guarantees for land owners.

He said the law could also help stop the requirements for the state, and in some cases “zero compensation” may be justified.

As an example, he cited the problems faced by the state -owned Eskom utility.

It plans to expand the transfer network by about 4,500 km (28,000 miles) to increase electricity to stop the electricity crisis in the country.

On the eve of the deployment, some people conspired with Eskom officials to buy land for $ 1 million ($ 56,000; £ 41,000), and then demanded R20M, he said.

“Is it fair and fair to give them what they want? I don’t think it is in the interests of the wide community or state,” Macferson said.

Given another example, McFerson said that some internal cities in South Africa were in a “catastrophic” state. After the owners left, the buildings were “overstated” and “stolen” for illegal occupation. He said the owner could exceed their cost, and in such cases the courts could make that the owner qualified for “zero compensation”, he said.

“Nil is a form of compensation,” McFerson added, highlighting the farms.

Johannesburg Mayor Dada Marero told Mail & Guardian in South Africa What he wanted to use buildings for “public good”, for example, posting about 300,000 people in the housing waiting list.

He added that the owners of almost 100 buildings could not be located.

“They gave up the buildings,” he said, adding that some owners were from the UK and Germany.

But Mabas and Carberg said the BBC that in such cases, the compensation probably should still be paid for the buildings, though not to the ground.

If the state failed to find the owners, it “should compensate for the Supreme Court to master,” when they returned or leaned later, they said.

The law is in the suspended state, because Ramaphos – approximately four months after giving it – still did not determine the date of its implementation.

It also cannot do it soon because it would not want to antogog Trump, while South Africa tried to agree on a trade agreement with the United States.

And on the internal front, the DA heads the counteraction to the law. It states that he wants a “judicial review”, and at the same time it is ahead of the court action to challenge the constitutionality of the law.

A heavy line of DA, unlike Macferson, who warned a few weeks ago that if the law was lifted in full: “I don’t know what happens afterwards.

“Politics sometimes you need to be careful what you want because you can often get it,” he said.

His comments emphasize deep cracks in South African politics, with some parties such as Julius Malem, the economic fighters of Liberty (EFF), believing that the legislation did not go far enough to solve racial inequality in the property of the land.

With such an emotional problem, there is no simple solution to the dispute – and it will probably continue to cause tensions in South Africa as well as with the US president.