Ingonyama Trust ‘violated the constitution’

In what’s been described as a landmark ruling the Pietermaritzburg High Court has declared the Ingonyama Trust’s residential lease programme unconstitutional.

The trust has been ordered to pay back millions of rand to residents who were made to sign residential leases. The trust’s lease programme had long made people sign residential leases in order to live on land that they have a right to under Zulu customary law.

Speaking to etv news on Friday, Lawson Naidoo from the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, Casac, explained how government has let rural residents down.