Restitution of Land Rights Act is signed

The Restitution of Land Rights Act, restoring the rights of those dispossessed by discriminatory land legislation dating back to the 1913 Land Act, was passed by Nelson Mandela and signed into law. The Act provided for the establishment of a Land Claims Commission and a Land Claims Court to respectively probe and adjudicate claims of individuals and communities dispossessed on or after June 1913. The court, with the same status as the Supreme Court, was empowered to instruct the government to buy or expropriate land and return it to the claimants on condition that such action was just and equitable. The Act received strong opposition from the right-wing Freedom Front (FF), Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the South African Agricultural Union (SAAU). References: South African History Online Keesing's Record of World Events, News Digest for November, 1994, p. 40263