CLOSURE OF PROSPECTING RIGHTS, MINING RIGHTS AND MINERAL RIGHTS IN TERMS OF APARTHEID LEGISLATION

The Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act 28 of 2002 transforms the entire mineral law system and provides for broad-based economic empowerment. In addition, the Act rids us of provisions in apartheid laws pertaining to prospecting and mining by providing for the transition, during a period of grace, of these rights into new prospecting or mining rights. This article will attempt to provide the background to the closure of these rights. The said rights exist within the new constitutional dispensation alongside the Minerals Act 50 of 1991. The closure of the prospecting and mining rights in terms of apartheid laws can be seen as a final chapter in consolidation of the various mineral law systems which existed during and even after apartheid.