Court upholds inflation measure for apartheid era restitution

A Cape Town woman yesterday failed in her bid to convince the Constitutional Court that the Consumer Price Index is an inappropriate measure of the value of a family home lost in the 1970s as a result of the Group Areas Act.

Isabel Florence had headed to court to try to get more than the almost R1.5-million the Land Claims Court awarded her in 2012 as compensation for the forced removal of her family from their home in Rondebosch.

The area was classified "white" under the Group Areas Act, resulting in them losing their home of more than 20 years in 1970.

The Land Claims Court, which found Florence was entitled to compensation, had used the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to determine the present-day value of the home.

Unhappy with the result, Florence headed to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), which confirmed CPI as the basis for calculating her restitution.

Florence then appealed to the Constitutional Court, arguing that CPI did not give sufficient effect to the right of restitution or equitable redress. But, yesterday the court agreed that CPI was appropriate to calculate Florence's restitution.

In a minority judgment, however, some of the court's judges found that CPI "does not adequately account for the loss of immovable property" and that "claimants who can only be compensated financially, should – as far as possible – be put in the same position as if the land had been restored to them".