1991

Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act, 1991

South African Parliament passes repeal of race-based land laws

The land laws were repealed by three racially separated chambers — and the Black majority most affected by them had no chamber at all.

5 June 1991: 112 to 30 in the white chamber

In Cape Town on 5 June 1991, South Africa's tricameral Parliament approved the Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Bill. The white House of Assembly passed it 112–30; the chambers representing Coloured and Indian voters approved it without opposition.

The Land and Group Areas Acts had restricted where Black South Africans could acquire, occupy or use land. They had no chamber in the Parliament that voted to repeal them.

Four statutes, rural and urban

The measure repealed the 1913 Black Land Act, the 1936 Development Trust and Land Act, the 1966 Group Areas Act and the 1984 Black Communities Development Act, together with numerous related provisions.

Its stated purpose was to abolish race- and population-group-based restrictions on acquiring and using rights to land, and to phase out the associated racial institutions and regulatory systems. The single measure reached both rural land allocation and the urban zoning system that had assigned neighbourhoods by race.

Passed in June, in force at the end of June

The vote completed parliamentary passage, but the old restrictions stayed legally operative while the bill awaited assent. F. W. de Klerk assented on 27 June, the Act was promulgated on 28 June and most provisions commenced on 30 June 1991.

Repealing the statutes did not return land to people dispossessed under them; restitution required later legislation and claims procedures. Racial classification was dealt with separately, by a further vote on 17 June repealing the Population Registration Act.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 7 sources 2 audit passes Date corrected

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

Date corrected. The research places this at 1991-06-05.

What the sources leave uncertain

This sheet dates the parliamentary vote, 5 June 1991—not presidential assent on 27 June, Gazette publication on 28 June, or commencement on 30 June.
A separate vote on 17 June repealed the Population Registration Act. Accounts describing 17 June as the vote that removed apartheid's legal framework are referring to that later measure, not this land-law vote.