South Africans protest mass eviction order in court

Prior to the trial, Hlophe himself had come under public criticism following a formal complaint from the Constitutional Court, alleging that he sought to influence two judges on behalf of former South African Deputy President and current African National Congress President Jacob Zuma.

In addition to sparring with Hlophe, the court had also ruled against Zuma, finding that documents seized in police raids could be used as evidence against him in his forthcoming trial on corruption and racketeering charges.

In response to Hlophe’s ruling, residents chose to bypass the Supreme Court of Appeals and applied for a hearing before the Constitutional Court. Established in 1994 through the country’s first democratic constitution, the court is the highest in the land and is tasked with upholding South Africa’s constitution, particularly its provisions regarding justice, equity, and the protection of human rights.

Challenging their appeal were heads of national, provincial and local government, as well as Thubelisha Homes, the private company managing the N2 Gateway project. These parties all argued that residents’ refusal to move to temporary relocation areas (TRAs) in Delft had blocked the project’s completion for more than two years.

During the hearing, judges Zac Yacoob and Kate O’Regan questioned the residents’ lawyers, Geoff Budlender and Pete Hathorn, asking on what grounds did the community have a legitimate expectation that it could occupy the Joe Slovo site indefinitely.

O’Regan also expressed concern over Hlophe’s eviction order for not laying out the process of relocation.

“I couldn’t imagine an order for eviction that didn’t set out where and how the respondents would be accommodated,” she said.

Chief Justice Pius Langa called the court’s attention to the TRAs’ myriad problems, from their distance from places of employment and schools to the lack of electricity and the area’s higher crime rate.

Admitted as a friend of the court, the lawyer from the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, an international nonprofit advocacy organization, went even further, describing the TRAs as “woefully inadequate” and “a barren wasteland.”

Rather than making a ruling, the court reserved judgment, with several judges repeatedly encouraging lawyers for both sides to come to a negotiated settlement. Yacoob even instructed the parties to draw up their own court order within the next week that would describe how the court should endeavor both to meet the needs of Joe Slovo residents and ensure the project’s completion.

Residents expressed hope that their grievances related to the top-down planning of the Gateway project had been heard by the court.

“We’ve been asking them to change the plans because we need RDP houses, and their plan is not to change what they want,” said Joe Slovo Task Team coordinator Mzwanele Zulu.

“RDP” stands for “Reconstruction and Development Property,” an approach to creating low-cost housing for poor individuals that includes the purchase and rehabilitation of dilapidated structures into living spaces that include little more than bare necessities. RDP housing typically consists of one bedroom, a living room, a kitchen and a toilet.

Zulu called the project leaders’ unwillingness to include RDP houses in the planning “unacceptable” and “a form of autocracy.”

“If they were more democratic, they would have allowed people to raise their views and their concerns about the future of their lives,” said Zulu. “They have been promising people to build houses for them there, but now they want to make money … That is the main problem we are facing. They aren’t aiming at improving the lives of the poor.”

After the hearing, residents marched through the streets of Johannesburg under the banner of the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, a social movement that had brought over two dozen evicted Delft residents to attend the hearing in solidarity.

By nightfall, the Cape Town delegation had returned to the Central Methodist Church, a five-story building that was already accommodating more than 5,000 homeless Africans, many of whom had been displaced by a wave of attacks against foreigners in May that left about 70 dead and hundreds injured.

Bishop Paul Verryn welcomed Joe Slovo residents, allowing them to stay in the church’s sanctuary and providing them with meals. During his welcome, the bishop likened the South African government’s efforts to the forced removals carried out by the state during the apartheid era.

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