When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am your God – Leviticus 19:33-34.
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit – Ephesians 2:19-22.
This case turns on the lawfulness of the grant to a company of a prospecting right on the land of another. This deceptively simple statement of the ultimate legal issue at stake, though true, hides more than it reveals. First, it explains little of the invasive nature of a prospecting right on the ordinary use and enjoyment of the property by its owners. Second, it says nothing about the profoundly unequal impact our legal history of control of and access to the richness and diversity of this country‘s mineral resources has had on the allocation and distribution of wealth and economic power. Lastly, it does little to illuminate the effect of past racial discrimination on the ownership of land. – Justice Froneman in Bengwenyama Minerals (Pty) Ltd and Others v Genorah Resources (Pty) Ltd
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