Case  CCT 379/24
[2025] ZACC 25

Hearing Date: 02 March 2025

Judgement Date: 13 November 2025

Post Judgment Media Summary  

The following explanatory note is provided to assist the media in reporting this case and is not binding on the Constitutional Court or any member of the Court.

On 13 November 2025, the Constitutional Court handed down judgment in an application for direct leave to appeal against a November 2024 judgment and order from the Land Court. The matter formed part of a fifteen-year litigation saga concerning a land restitution claim in Constantia.

The applicant in this matter was the South African Riding for the Disabled Association (SARDA), a non-profit organisation that provides equine therapy to children with disabilities in the Western Cape. The first respondent was the Regional Land Claims Commission, Western Cape (the Commission). The second to sixth respondents were representatives of several trusts composed of members of the Sadien family (collectively referred to as the Sadien family); and the seventh respondent was Sediek Sadien.

The dispossession centred around Erf 2274 Constantia, which had been in the Sadien family since 1902. Members of the extended Sadien family lived together on the land, using it to grow and sell fruits and vegetables. The Sadien family was dispossessed of their land as a result of the Group Areas Act and were forced to sell it in 1963 for a consideration significantly below its market value. After 1994, various descendants of the Sadien family filed land claims in respect of the dispossessed land, which were consolidated into one family claim by the Commission between 2001 and 2003.

In 2012, the Land Claims Court concluded that the Sadien brothers were dispossessed of their land as a result of racially discriminatory laws and practices and ordered that the state-owned Erf 1783 be transferred to Sediek Sadien in response to the family restitution claim. This order was varied in February 2013 to replace Erf 1783 with Erf 142 given the inadequate size of Erf 1783. The state-owned Erf 142 has been occupied by SARDA since 1980. SARDA, as the occupier of Erf 142, was not notified of the proceedings. SARDA subsequently filed applications for leave to intervene and appeal the inclusion of Erf 142 before the Land Claims Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal, all of which were rejected. SARDA then filed an application for leave to appeal to this Court in 2016.

On 23 February 2017, this Court held that SARDA’s interest as a lawful occupier of state-owned land gave it a direct and substantial interest to intervene in the restitution proceedings on the basis of its right to just and equitable compensation under section 35(9) of the Restitution of Land Rights Act 22 of 1994 (the Act). This Court went on to find that SARDA’s interest was limited to compensation and it did not have an interest in the transfer of Erf 142 to the Sadien family. This Court found it unnecessary to rescind the varied 2013 order and the matter was remitted to the Land Claims Court for the determination of SARDA’s compensation.

After a failed mediation process to determine SARDA’s compensation and a dispute between the Sadien family and Sediek Sadien surrounding the handling of the awarded land, various trusts representing the Sadien family filed a notice to intervene in the Land Claims Court in 2024 to substitute them as parties entitled to the substantive relief under the 2012 and 2013 orders. SARDA filed a counter-application, once again seeking to amend or rescind the 2012 and 2013 orders to remove Erf 142 from their remit. The court, which had been renamed to the Land Court, dismissed SARDA’s counter-application. It is this dismissal which was the basis for SARDA’s application for direct leave to appeal before this Court.

SARDA sought leave to appeal for two purposes: first, it asked this Court to set aside the Land Court’s 2024 substitution order on the grounds that it is incapable of execution, is incoherent and is bad in law. Second, it asked this Court to rescind the Land Claims Court’s 2013 varied order. The basis for both legs of SARDA’s challenge relied on its contention that it had a direct and substantial interest in the 2013 order and the 2024 substitution order beyond mere compensation.

SARDA argued that this Court’s 2017 order was interlocutory and capable of variation by the Land Court. In the event that the 2017 order was final, SARDA asked this Court to depart from that order on the ground that it was made per incuriam (through lack of care). In SARDA’s view, the interests of justice favoured granting direct leave to appeal because it maintained the matter could only come to finality through the consideration of whether this Court’s 2017 order was wrongly decided.

The Commission disputed SARDA’s claim to standing and submitted that there was no basis for granting SARDA direct leave to appeal. The Commission said that SARDA impermissibly asked this Court to depart from its earlier decision and sought a complete rehearing of the 2017 matter. Similarly, according to the Sadien family, SARDA was requesting a rehearing of this Court’s 2017 judgment which definitively ruled on SARDA’s interest in respect of the land claim without finding a need to rescind the 2013 order. The Sadien family contended that there was no coherent or compelling reason for this Court to depart from its 2017 order, and public policy considerations and the interests of justice emphasise the need for finality.

In a unanimous judgment written by Kollapen J (with Mlambo DCJ, Majiedt J, Mathopo J, Rogers J, Savage AJ, Theron J and Tshiqi J concurring), this Court held that SARDA lacked standing to oppose the intervention application in the Land Court, lacked standing to bring a counter-application and, finally, lacked standing to bring this appeal.

Standing “goes to the substance of an applicant’s entitlement to come to court” and is crucial to determine if a matter is properly before a court. The onus rests on the party instituting proceedings to allege and prove that it has standing. In establishing its standing, the obstacle SARDA faced was that in 2017 this Court decided that SARDA’s interest in relation to the restitution proceedings is limited to compensation.

SARDA initially attempted to side-step this Court’s 2017 finding as it argued that this Court’s order in relation to the scope of its limited standing was interlocutory because the Court’s limitation of their right did not elevate the status of the order to that of a final order and that the matter was open to the Land Court to reconsider this Court’s 2017 order on good cause shown. This argument could not be sustained.

It was clear that the 2017 order was final and definitive in effect and thus was not interlocutory. This Court found that SARDA’s direct and substantial interest in the litigation was confined to intervening for the purposes of determining its right to compensation and for this purpose only. The order made rested on a substantive interpretation of section 35(9) of the Act and made clear that the rights of lawful occupiers who reside on land do not trump the rights of claimants to have their land restored. The order irreparably precluded any other relief SARDA would be minded to seek in the restitution proceedings and limited them to compensation. It could never be suggested that another court, seized with the question of SARDA’s standing, could alter this Court’s finding after it had pronounced on it.

SARDA also contended that this Court’s 2017 order was wrongly decided and should be rescinded, though its legal representative conceded during the hearing that no rescission application had been brought in respect of the 2017 order and one should have been brought for this Court to properly consider rescission. In the interest of legal certainty and finality, and absent an application, this Court cannot consider rescission.

Given the final nature of this Court’s 2017 order and that no proper application for rescission served before this Court, this Court shared the sentiments of the lower court that it was “puzzling and somewhat troubling” that SARDA considered itself entitled to bring these proceedings. In 2017, this Court found that SARDA “misconceived the extent of its interest” by seeking to involve itself in the Sadien family’s land claim. The Court held that the application before it extended beyond a mere misconception to what could only be viewed as a refusal to accept the extent of its interest and a disregard of this Court’s 2017 order.

In conclusion and in urging a resolution of this long outstanding matter, this Court raised its importance in the broader context of restitution within which this dispute is located. Restitution is the means for the state, and society at large, to begin to address and rectify the injustices of the past which in many respects are still pervasive more than 30 years into our democracy. Addressing past injustices and providing equitable redress inherently requires finality. The Sadien family were dispossessed of their land in 1963 and, over 60 years later and 13 years after the original restitution award, they still have not been able to regain possession of that which is owed to them. Through repeated legal challenges and the disregard for this Court’s 2017 judgment, SARDA has furthered the delay in the finalisation of this long outstanding claim for restitution.

The Sadien family has waited long enough to receive the right in land to which they are legally entitled. SARDA’s continuous attempts to challenge the settled 2013 order cannot be overlooked in light of the injustice faced by the Sadien family and the significance of restitution.

On the matter of costs, the Court highlighted that the awarding of costs remains within the Court’s discretion. The respondents had requested that, even if the Biowatch principle were to apply, this Court should depart from it and make an appropriate costs order against SARDA due to its conduct in delaying the restitution process through protracted litigation processes. The Biowatch principle is not unqualified. If the application seeking to enforce an applicant’s constitutional rights against the state is frivolous or vexatious, or in any other way manifestly inappropriate, it will be treated as an ordinary civil case.

In light of this Court’s finding that SARDA had disregarded its previous order and prolonged the restitution process by intervening in processes where it lacked standing, this Court found no reason why SARDA should be protected by the Biowatch principle. No fundamental constitutional right against the state was sought to be enforced in these proceedings. Even if SARDA were to fall within the protective realm of Biowatch, the Court found that this was a suitable case for departure from the principle. What SARDA impermissibly sought to do was to re-litigate an issue which had been finally disposed of, and even then its attempt to do so was so procedurally inept and devoid of merit that it must be removed from the shield of Biowatch protection. However, this Court recognised that SARDA is a non-profit organisation which does important work to assist the disability community. The Court thus exercised its discretion and directed that the applicant paid the respondents’ costs in this Court, but not the costs of two counsel as requested by the first respondent.

In the circumstances, this Court concluded that SARDA had no standing to institute these proceedings. The result, therefore, was that the appeal must fail.

The Full judgment  here