Dear Editor
A reply to a DA Parliamentary question has revealed, quite shockingly, that the Minister of Land and Rural Development is enforcing racial classification regulations in property transfers without a legal or legislative definition of “race” to underpin the compulsory classification requirement introduced.
The DA sees this as being utterly flawed – a Minister cannot admit that his regulations have no legal definition, yet also insist that they are implemented and enforced as if they are binding law.
The Democratic Alliance reiterates our demand that the Minister of Land and Rural Development, Mzwanele Nyhontso, must abandon the controversial and compulsory regulation that requires buyers of property to declare their race and gender in writing to the government via compulsory Deeds Office forms, because by the Minister’s own admission “there is no legal or legislative definition of race” in South Africa any longer.
The Minister’s admission that South African law can no longer define race fatally undermines the legality of his regulations which compel individuals to disclose their race in writing to transfer a property. If the Minister cannot legally define race, how can he compel transferring parties to declare their race?
What is worse is that this race declaration is now an absolute condition to property transfers, and Deeds Office files lacking this declaration are being thrown out of the Deeds Office process. Non-compliance results in the Deeds Office refusing to process registrations.
The Minister’s reply also bizarrely claims that the intention of this race rule was to attain “voluntarily” declarations, but in the same breath, the Minister contradicts himself by confirming that completing the Deeds Office form “Form LLL” with a racial classification is mandatory.
The Minister has seemingly and unilaterally made race and gender disclosures a requirement for the transfer of land.
This requirement not only appears to fall outside the scope of the Minister’s powers, but its coercive nature also threatens the constitutional rights to privacy and dignity – because it demands racial self-classification, on threat of an administrative sanction.
The DA announces that we will now undertake oversight visits to Deeds Offices to observe how this regulation is impacting South Africans. We will seek oversight of the process where an incomplete Form LLL results in a transfer file being thrown out or having notes raised.
The Minister has attempted in the past to incorrectly justify his regulations as being necessary for “land audit” purposes, but this is fundamentally flawed. Deeds Offices transfers reflect a moveable feast – every day thousands of transfers take place and therefore the changing of property ownership at this rate can never give a picture of ownership, and long-term ownership.
The Minister’s second justification (that this data is being collected because the Department was previously criticised for not having it) shows that this is an act of political expediency not because it meets constitutional or evidentiary thresholds for a land audit.
South Africans must not be forced to participate in racial self-classification under threat of administrative sanction, such as their property transfer being thrown out.
The DA will continue to oppose this unconstitutional measure through all available parliamentary and legal avenues.
Regards
Mlindi Nhanha MP
DA Spokesperson on Land Reform and Rural Development