The government will shortly start moving the Gabon community on Modderklip farm to give effect to a recent Constitutional Court judgement, the Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs said on Tuesday.
The department, which gave no date for when the 70 000-strong community is to be moved, said the matter is a ”priority”.
”The relocation will be effected as soon as the necessary legal and planning processes, including the provision of basic municipal services, have been finalised. All state institutions involved have prioritised completion so that the relocation occurs lawfully but with the minimum of delay.”
The land is not suitable for residential development because of undermining.
About 400 people invaded Modderklip farm, near Daveyton, near Benoni, about five years ago, under the impression it was municipal land.
The community quickly grew to 40 000 and refused to budge, despite attempts by farm owner Abraham Duvenhage to have them evicted.
Three years ago, the Johannesburg High Court granted Duvenhage an eviction order, but the sheriff of the court refused to carry out the eviction unless Duvenhage paid a R1,8-million deposit. The farmer refused to do so.
He then asked the Pretoria High Court to force the state to move the squatters or pay him compensation.
The Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs said the government is confident that its land-reform and housing policies and programmes are in line with the judgement and that they remain the only correct vehicles for meeting people’s land and housing needs.
”Land invaders are therefore strongly discouraged from invading land unlawfully because the judgement has made it quiet clear that unlawful occupiers will have to be evicted.”
The department said its understanding of the judgement is that the court found that, in instances such as the Modderklip case, due regard to the supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law requires that the government should assist the property owner.
”In fact, the case was not about deprivation of Modderklip’s property rights and/or denial of the occupiers’ rights to access to housing.
”It was about whether the state is obliged to assist Modderklip in executing the court order to evict the occupiers on their land by paying the sheriff’s fee and whether the occupiers should ‘jump queue’ in the housing waiting list,” the department said.
”Contrary to some landowners’ understanding of the implications of the judgement, the court still recognises that all landowners [including absentee owners] have a duty in law to themselves prevent land invasions of their land and, where they do occur, to promptly take the necessary remedial action before the situation escalates to unmanageable proportions.”
In the Modderklip case, the court was satisfied that the landowner had prudently attempted to protect his property and rights, the department said. — Sapa