......All it took was the stroke of a pen. The day after the 1913 Land Act was passed, thousands of black families were made landless in the country of their birth. More than a century later, South Africa is still dealing with its effects. . . . Those who argue that the past should be buried should look at the present situation to realise the damage that the Land A...

This article addresses a neglected strand in assessments of the failure of ‘delivery’ in South Africa's land reform programme, through an examination of the institutional obstacles to success in the restitution programme between 1995 and 2000. Here it looks in particular at the impact of ‘the sunset clause’ on initial staffing and the definition of claims, at persi...