Closing off public spaces with boom gates is putting up a laager and reinstating apartheid — and it is also illegal, the South African Human Rights Commission heard on Tuesday.
The commission is hearing submissions on whether communities should be allowed to restrict access to public areas to feel safer.
Nick Karvelis — of the Open City Forum, an NGO — said erecting booms, gating off a community and vetting people’s movements are against the law.
He equated the restrictions with checkpoints and roadblocks and said even National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi is not allowed to operate a roadblock for more than 24 hours at a time.
”How can local councils cordon off an area for two years?” he asked referring to the Johannesburg metro council’s policy to grant closures if they comply with certain criteria.
Karvelis said the Constitution and the Police Act state that only Parliament and the national executive can make laws regarding safety and security.
He said although provinces have certain powers, where there is conflict, national legislation prevails.
People who refuse to contribute to the financial costs of the restrictions are treated like visitors to their own homes, Karvelis added.
Some people have been victimised for refusing to cooperate with guards and some have been threatened with violence. Ambulance services have been delayed by between eight to 15 minutes and cannot use gated-off streets to escape heavy traffic.
Money spent in erecting and maintaining the gated communities — one community paid R1,7-million — can be better used as part of efforts to address the causes of crime, said Karvelis.
Earlier, the Johannesburg metro council said it found constitutional contradictions in the conflict, and that closures tend to reduce opportunistic crimes that have little impact on overall high-level crime.
The council found that although crime had dropped in some gated areas, there had been an increase in crime in the surrounding areas.
There are also severe restrictions on people who relied on public transport.
Minibuses ”must just go away” although 73% of the people living in Johannesburg rely on this mode of transport, said Bon Stanway, who is representing a mayoral committee on the matter.
He said more than 1 000 roads have been closed in this way in the city.
One of the criteria for closures is was that 80% of residents in an area agree to the closure. — Sapa