The City of Johannesburg must rebuild demolished shelters belonging to the communities of the Rabie Ridge informal settlement, north-east of Johannesburg, or pay the homeless R1,500 each to rebuild their shacks.

This comes after the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed the City’s application for leave to appeal against a former high court order which declared the eviction of these people unlawful and ordered the City to rebuild the shacks or compensate the community.

In July 2023, officials of the City of Johannesburg, together with contracted security personnel, on two occasions demolished the informal shacks and shelters that had been erected on a portion of the Allandale Farm, adjacent to the Modderfontein Road in Johannesburg.

The property, owned by the City, has been earmarked for the development of low-cost housing. It has been the scene of numerous and repeated land invasions and occupation by persons seeking housing or shelter.

The City has, in response to this state of affairs, conducted numerous preventative actions involving the demolition of structures; the removal of building materials and belongings of occupiers; and, in some instances, the destruction of shelters or materials used to erect them.

The events of July 2023 were, at the time, the latest of such actions by the City. The conduct of the City prompted the affected persons, 292 individuals, to launch an urgent application before the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria.

The court at the time declared that the evictions were unlawful and unconstitutional and ordered the City to restore their possession of the demolished structures or pay R1 500 each. The City’s defence was that it acted in terms of a court order which it had obtained in March 2017 which prohibited the homeless from invading the land. The City contended that its conduct was authorised by that order and that it had, therefore, not unlawfully evicted the people.

Judge Glenn Goosen, who wrote the unanimous SCA judgment, remarked that there is no dispute that the City demolished structures which had been erected on the property, that it removed building materials and certain belongings of the affected persons and, in some instances, destroyed certain materials.

The City contended that it had not evicted any persons from the property on the basis that the affected persons were not “occupiers”. They were, according to the City, persons who intended to invade the property and who were prevented from doing so by the actions of the City. The 2017 order authorised this preventative conduct, the City argued.

But Judge Goosen said the City’s argument that it did not constitute an eviction of the persons concerned is without merit. He pointed to pictures handed to court depicting piles of building materials from demolished structures. They also show persons with personal belongings and household goods.

“These images are difficult to reconcile with the claim, made by the City, that no action was taken to demolish established shelters and structures,” the judge said. He also pointed out that the City cannot use the 2017 order issued against “unknown occupiers” against new occupiers of the land in 2023.

Louise du Plessis of Lawyers for Human Rights’ housing and land programme welcomed the judgment and said the SCA made it clear that municipalities cannot use old interdicts to evict new invaders. She said if municipalities wanted to evict land invaders, they must bring a fresh application under the applicable law.

zelda.venter@inl.co.za

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