The Constitutional Court on Tuesday returned the land and mineral rights currently owned by Alexkor, the state diamond company, to a community forcibly removed from the land in the 1920s. In a unanimous judgement, the Constitutional Court largely confirmed an order handed down earlier this year by the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) that the Richtersveld community had been removed from their land under racist laws and practices, and were therefore entitled to have it, and the mineral rights, returned to their exclusive use and benefit. "These practices were racially discriminatory because they were based upon the faulty, albeit unexpressed, premise that because of the Richtersveld community's race and lack of civilisation, they had lost all rights in the land upon annexation," the SCA had said.