Salem Party Club and Others v Salem Community and Others (Association for Rural Advancement as Amicus Curiae)
The Court held that the Salem Community proved, on the balance of probabilities, that from at least 1878 a community of black people lived on the Salem Commonage under shared rules governing access and use, thereby holding rights in land in the form of customary law interests and beneficial occupation. Those rights were dispossessed when the 1940 court-authorised subdivision and subsequent 1947 transfer proceeded without consulting or accounting for the black inhabitants, in a racially discriminatory process. However, the Community’s rights were parallel to, and not exclusive of, the settlers…
Source excerpt
- Restitution of land rights
- Dispossession
- Community rights in land
- Historical evidence
- Expert evidence
- Customary law interests