Lobby group AfriForum on Wednesday filed an application in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to challenge the constitutionality of the controversial Expropriation Act.

The Bill signed by President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this year has been met with criticism from some opposition parties and civil society and has been the catalyst for US President Donald Trump’s decision to terminate all United States Agency for International Development aid to South Africa.

AfriForum head of public relations Ernst van Zyl maintained that the Act, and the notice of its signing published in the government gazette a month later, contained “serious flaws and is a real threat to the constitutional right to private property in South Africa".

Van Zyl welcomed Trump’s spotlight on the “threat” the Act posed to private property rights in South Africa.

Last week, the Trump administration welcomed 59 white South Africans, as the first batch of Afrikaners to be granted “refugee status” by Trump, supported by the belief that they had been persecuted and amid claims of genocide.

“AfriForum’s court case, in which we will test the constitutionality of this Act, is our most important local battle in this fight,” said Van Zyl.

AfriForum argued that certain sections and provisions of the Act contained inherent contradictions.

Alternatively, AfriForum seeks an order that those specific provisions be declared unconstitutional.

“Central to AfriForum’s arguments is that Section 12(3) of the Act, which provides for the expropriation of property at nil compensation, opens the real possibility of the abuse of public power in that every expropriating authority, including mismanaged local authorities, is given the power to expropriate at nil compensation,” he said.

AfriForum also argued that the Act allows a property owner to be deprived of their property while the matter of its expropriation is fought over in court – a process that it says can take many years.

Van Zyl claimed that the African National Congress’s top brass had for years now emphasised that the intention of the Expropriation Act is to enable expropriation without compensation and that “nil compensation” means “no compensation”.

“We have heard them highlight their objectives, and we believe them,” he said.