The Constitution mandates equitable redress for individuals and communities from whom colonial and apartheid-era governments, under racially discriminatory laws and practices, took land after 1913.

The Commission on Restitution of Land Rights has provided equitable redress for dispossessed populations either by giving them financial compensation or by buying land for them from current owners. The function of equitable redress is not only to compensate past victims for financial losses, but also to empower South Africa’s black majority economically.