- Mnisi brothers granted temporary cattle grazing rights while their labour tenant claim is urgently processed.
- Court finds the Department of Land Reform failed to properly consider their historical land rights.
- Ruling comes amid renewed public scrutiny of South Africa’s land reform failures and expropriation laws.
For more than a decade, brothers Elvis and Philemon Mnisi lived in the shadow of South Africa’s land reform programme, trapped on overgrazed land, struggling to maintain the small herd of cattle that their family’s livelihood depended on.
Their father, Simon Fanyana Mnisi, had filed a labour tenant claim under the Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Act in the early 2000s. But while another claimant’s application was processed and finalised, theirs was left to gather dust, unacknowledged and incomplete. Until now.
The Land Court has now ordered the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development to finalise the Mnisi family’s labour tenant claim within 30 court days. The court also granted them interim grazing rights on a portion of land currently occupied by another labour tenant, Kuyiti Joseph Nkambule, whose claim was previously finalised through a 2022 settlement.
“The applicants were excluded from a statutory process through no fault of their own,” wrote Judge WJ du Plessis. “They seek only temporary, proportionate relief… while preserving the fairness and integrity of the broader process.”
A caveat must now be placed on the land’s title deed to prevent any transfer or encumbrance until the Mnisis’ claim is resolved.
One farm, two histories
Both the Mnisi and Nkambule families were labour tenants on the Waterval farm in Mpumalanga. When the land was later converted into a game farm, both families were relocated. But their new realities could not have been more different.
Nkambule was settled on Portion 5 of the nearby Komatidraai farm, where grazing was possible. The Mnisis, however, were moved to a dry patch of land on the other side of the road, where their cattle began dying from starvation and overgrazing.
In 2023, an informal arrangement was discussed to allow them grazing access back on Portion 5, but it fell through. Only then did they discover that the land had already been formally awarded to Nkambule, following a legal process they were never invited into.
The department acknowledged in a 2025 letter that the Mnisis’ claim had been deprioritised to avoid disrupting the finalisation of Nkambule’s claim. But the court found this violated the principles of procedural fairness laid out in the Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Act.
“The different parcels of land cannot be viewed in isolation,” the court wrote. “Both claims are interlinked and must be considered together.”
Land rights, delays, and a country in tension
The judgment arrives at a time when South Africa’s land reform efforts are under renewed scrutiny. Earlier this year, the long-awaited Expropriation Act of 2024 came into effect, opening the door for land expropriation without compensation under limited constitutional conditions.
But critics argue that the real crisis is not expropriation itself, but the State’s persistent failure to process land claims fairly, efficiently, and transparently. Cases like the Mnisis’, where one family’s claim is honoured and another’s ignored, have become emblematic of the slow, fractured reality of land justice in post-apartheid South Africa.
Judge du Plessis acknowledged the complexity of balancing rights in such disputes. Nkambule, now 93, lawfully secured his land through a court-approved agreement. The Mnisis are not challenging that,but rather, asking that their own path to justice not be blocked because of the State’s failure.
“This is not about taking land away,” said the court. “It’s about ensuring the constitutional and statutory framework is allowed to unfold as intended.”
No winners, only equity
In a moving passage, the court recognised that what should have been a triumphant moment for Nkambule, finally securing tenure after decades of struggle, had now been clouded by the Mnisi family’s plea for inclusion.
The judgment didn’t assign blame. It carved out a path that acknowledges that both parties are rights-bearers, and that it is the State’s duty to resolve the conflict it created through inaction. “Rigid legalism,” the judge wrote, “would compound harm and enable the failure to persist.”
For now, the Mnisis may graze 27 cattle on a portion of land near the Komatidraai entrance, an interim solution, not a resolution. If the department fails to act within the court-ordered timeline, more serious legal consequences may follow.
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