Ninety-two-year-old Struggle activist Nathaniel Mashilo Masemola must receive a special pension, the Constitutional Court ruled yesterday.

Masemola, who was actively engaged in the liberation Struggle, lost his special pension after a fraud conviction. He received a pardon from former president Jacob Zuma on July 21 2011.

The Constitutional Court ordered that the pension be reinstated because of the pardon.

The matter has its origins as far back as 1997, when Masemola, an ANC member since 1946, applied for and was awarded a special pension.

However, Masemola was convicted of several counts of fraud and sentenced to five years' imprisonment in 2001.

He served six months.

Masemola continued to draw his special pension until he received a letter from the Special Pensions Appeal Board in 2008. It stated that, because he had been convicted of fraud, the Special Pensions Act disqualified him from receiving the remuneration.

His pension was stopped in June 2008.

After being pardoned, Masemola approached the Government Pensions Administration Agency (GPAA) for the reinstatement of the pension. This was refused by the GPAA, which said the pardon did not invalidate decisions taken before the granting of the pardon.

Masemola then approached the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, which ordered the reinstatement of his pension.

However, the Supreme Court of Appeal upheld an appeal by the Special Pensions Appeal Board and the GPAA, and held that Masemola was no longer entitled to receive the benefit.

This led him to approach the Constitutional Court.

In a unanimous judgment by justice Nonkosi Mhlantla, the court said the result of the presidential pardon was that Masemola, for all intents and purposes, and with effect from July 21 2011, was legally to be treated as a person who had not been convicted of an offence.

The court said the appropriate relief was to declare that his entitlement to receive a special pension was restored from the date of his pardon.

The court ordered that the Special Pensions Appeal Board and the GPAA pay the money within 14 days.