The government has returned to South Africa's Constitutional Court seeking to prevent a New York auction of items that once belonged to Nelson Mandela. The renewed legal move targets a 29-piece lot that includes Mandela's identity card, shirts, writings and the key to his Robben Island cell, where he spent 18 of his 27 years behind bars.
South Africa's heritage agency, the South African Heritage Resources Agency, and the culture ministry argue the objects form part of the country's national heritage and were removed from the country without the required permission. Those institutions first challenged the planned sale after it was announced in 2021 by Guernsey's, a New York auction house, prompting a suspension while courts considered the case.
South African courts subsequently cleared the auction, but the government has renewed its legal effort to stop the sale. The dispute has now been returned to the country's highest court for another examination, placing the proposed overseas sale back under judicial scrutiny.
The auction was authorised by Mandela's eldest daughter, Makaziwe, who approved the sale to raise funds for a memorial garden near her father's grave in Qunu. Mandela was South Africa's first democratically elected president in 1994 and died in 2013 at the age of 95.
The renewed petition frames the case as a contest between claims of private ownership and the state's interest in protecting items it regards as part of the national patrimony. If the Constitutional Court grants the government's request, the New York auction could be stopped again and the contested objects may be prevented from leaving South Africa. The filing returns a long-running legal fight over where and how items tied to the anti-apartheid leader should be handled.
