ATTORNEY Luleka Flatela has lambasted government for not fully supporting the land claimants and landless people.
She told the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) interviews for a post in the Gauteng High Court (seconded to the Land Claims Court) on Thursday, 6 October that advocates and attorneys who take land cases were poorly paid.
She said this lead to claimants not getting the best legal representatives while the defendants were well resourced and have the best legal minds.
“If you want to see the apartheid live, you look at the lives of farm dwellers and farm workers. But you find that the government in supporting them the rates that the advocates and attorneys are paid is a far cry,” said Flatela.
She said claimants, who are the most degraded, most oppressed and most vulnerable, end up being offered less payments for their claims.
“The rates are really not fair to claimants because they don’t get the best legal representation,” said Flatela.
She said sometimes she’d take work on pro-bono to give service to the poor.
She said she has looked at the Land Court Bill and she thought putting the land courts under the high courts was a good move because the high courts were already established, have resources and can lend judges to deal with cases.
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The Mthatha attorney has acted as a State Attorney, where she dealt with land restitution, land transfers among others.
“During the time when I was State Attorney, I briefed many women attorneys and introduced many of them to the land right issues,” said Flatela.
She said the courts that deal with land issues should be court of equity because the laws had excluded indigenous people.
She said when dealing with such matters, one has to take into consideration of their history because the constitution was the law to achieve equality, dignity and human rights.
“The courts should have regards to their history in order to grant claimants fair hearing,” she said.
Flatela said then jury was still out if the government would be able to expropriate land, and she could not remember if there was any matter being tested in court.
She said liberation movements ignored land issue and landlessness during negotiations, and it was only now they were trying to address the issue.
She said there was no need to amend constitution to deal with land issues.
She said the government should be willing to deal with it.
Flatela told the panel that she lives with rheumatoid arthritis, but it was on remission and won’t affect her work. She said the matters she was known for, she dealt with them when the disease was acute and she was really sick.
Flatela said: “The issue is support. One needs support in terms of secretary and researches who would be available when needed.”
After deliberations, the JSC recommended her for the position.
