In April 2019, the Nelson Mandela Foundation commissioned a series of papers on urban land reform. Their aim was to inform debate about and propose a feasible approach to urban land reform which could, in the near future, be implemented. In line with this, SERI authored two papers on urban land reform and urban land redistribution. SERI has recently published the revised versions of the summary reports of the papers submitted to the Nelson Mandela Foundation and will be published at a later stage.
The paper on urban land reform adopts Section 25(6)2 and Sections 26 (1), (2) and (3)3 of the Constitution as its starting points. Shortly after the Constitution was enacted, a set of tenure security laws were enacted to give immediate effect to Section 25(6), pending the development of legislation providing permanent, positive rights.4 The Prevention of Illegal Eviction and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act 19 of 1998 (the PIE Act), which gave effect to section 26(3), is one of these laws. The long-term legislation has not yet been developed.