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Ownership of historical mine dumps: uncaptured no more?

journal contribution
posted on 2018-01-01, 00:00 authored by Pieter BadenhorstPieter Badenhorst, C N Van Heerden
Historical mine dumps are mine dumps that were created before the enactment of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act 28 of 2002 (‘MPRDA’) and are not (yet) regulated by the MPRDA. The legal principles pertaining to ownership of historical mine dumps are discussed in terms of the common law and the Minerals Act 50 of 1991. In this article, we analyse case law supporting the view that historical mine
dumps are not regulated by the MPRDA, as well as the legislature’s recent attempt to regulate historical mine dumps with proposed amendments to the MPRDA.We conclude
that the vesting of custodianship of minerals in historical mine dumps (outside a mining area) in the state will not amount to an act of expropriation in light of the decision of the Constitutional Court in Agri SA v Minister for Minerals and Energy 2013 (4) SA 1 (CC). Upon failure by holders of mining rights or mining permits timeously to amend mining work programmes and mining rights to include historical mine dumps
(within a mining area), their ownership thereof will be terminated. We argue that the ownership of such mine dumps may then be acquired by appropriation (occupatio). As a result, should the amendments become law, we foresee a conflict between holders of mining rights or mining permits and illegal miners and marginalised communities.

History

Journal

South African law journal

Volume

135

Issue

Part 2

Pagination

351 - 375

Publisher

Juta and Company

Location

Cape Town, South Africa

ISSN

0258-2503

Language

English

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal; C Journal article

Copyright notice

2018, Juta

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