AfriForum, a lobby group for white Afrikaners in South Africa, rejoiced on Wednesday when the country’s Supreme Court rejected communist leader Julia Malema’s application for leave to appeal a 2017 court ruling. The decision prohibits Malema and his violent Marxist-Leninist party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), from inciting trespass and illegal occupation of private property.
“In January 2023, Malema and the EFF applied for leave to appeal in this case with the high court in Pretoria — the application was dismissed. They then took the matter to the Constitutional Court, which dismissed their application in March 2023. Even after the highest court in South Africa — the Constitutional Court — dismissed their application for leave to appeal, they approached the Supreme Court of Appeal. Today’s definitive verdict by that court leaves Malema and the EFF with no further options for appeal”, AfriForum writes in a press release.
AfriForum argues that the ruling means that incitement to trespass and invade someone else’s land is considered a serious crime, a position it shares.
– Even though this fight against the incitement of criminality by thugs is now conclusively over, the question still needs to be asked: Why were Malema and the EFF so intensely desperate to be allowed to incite land invasions? asks Ernst van Zyl, campaign manager for AfriForum.
– This third and final defeat for Malema and the EFF in this important battle is a major win for the right to private property and a devastating loss for those who wish to incite criminality and lawlessness, he continues.
For years, Malema and the EFF have been urging their supporters to occupy what they say is free and vacant land – land that is in fact often owned by European citizens.
Throughout his political career, Malema has been known for his inflammatory rhetoric, including openly calling for the murder of white South Africans – statements that were perceived as so egregious that even the ruling ANC party felt compelled to distance itself from Malema and expel him.
