Democracy icon and former South African President Nelson Mandela's health may be slightly improving, but it is not just his body that needs healing. His feuding family also needs emotional healing as they went to court over planned burial site for the 94-year-old man.

Sixteen of Mr Mandela's relatives got a court decision to return the remains of the former president's three children to Qunu, the town where the anti-apartheid activist grew as a boy.

The court order was in line with Mr Mandela's wishes that his future grave would be beside his two sons who died in 1969 and 2005 and a daughter who died as an infant in 1948 and were buried in Qunu.

However, Mandla Mandela, the former president's grandson, had the bodies of his relatives exhumed two years ago without the family approval and brought them to Mvezo, the village where he is chief and his famous grandfather's birthplace.

The battle for his gravesite, even while the former president is still battling for his life, appears to be motivate by money since having him buried in Mvezo would turn the place into a tourist pilgrimage destination.

Mandla is the son of the elder Mandela's second son. He was expected to be in court in Mthatha on Tuesday to oppose the court order to return the corpses of his relatives to Qunu.

"The way we are handling these matters is contrary to our customs and a deep disappointment to my grandfather and his ancestors," the grandson was quoted by New Zealand Herald.

Judge Lusindiso Phakade, the justice hearing the case, allowed the trial to be made in an open court and media to cover the event.

Another Mandela grandson, Ndaba, called his half-brother Mandla power hungry and self-obsessed.

The former president is still in a critical but stable condition at the Mediclinic Heart Hospital in Pretoria after he received treatment for a reoccurring lung infection.

Besides Mr Mandela, another South African president, F.W. de Klerk, is also in the hospital to be fitted with a pacemaker. It was Mr de Klerk who freed Mr Mandela from 27 years of imprisonment under apartheid, and the two shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.