Residents of two buildings in Johannesburg’s inner city are taking an eviction order against them to the Constitutional Court, their lawyers said on Wednesday.
About 300 people in Berea’s San Jose building and 197 Main Street have lodged an application for leave to appeal a Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) decision that opened the way for city officials to evict them.
This is according to the Wits Centre for Applied Legal Studies, which advocates for the rights and needs of poor people in the inner city.
The buildings, which the city said were unsafe, are to be revamped under an inner-city regeneration programme.
The SCA’s eviction order has been suspended pending the outcome of the application. The residents can stay in their present homes for the time being.
The centre’s Stuart Wilson said: ”The decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal failed to seriously consider the claims of the poor to be adequately catered for in terms of Johannesburg’s housing and urban regeneration policies.”
”The SCA was too sympathetic to the city’s regeneration strategy,” he told the Mail & Guardian Online. ”We are more optimistic about the appeal to the Constitutional Court.”
”While the residents in this case won the right to alternative accommodation, the SCA did very little to protect the thousands of people living in similar circumstances,” Wilson said. ”Nor did the SCA properly safeguard the residents’ constitutional rights by making the execution of the eviction order conditional on genuine consultation and the provision of alternative shelter.”
He added: ”It is to be hoped that the Constitutional Court will remedy these and other limitations in the SCA judgement.”
Miloon Kothari, special rapporteur for housing at the United Nations Human Rights Council, is in the country to assess whether the housing rights of poorer communities are being upheld adequately.
”The state has a moral duty to provide adequate housing. And the judgement [by the SCA] does not keep with the moral obligation to provide for people who can’t afford it,” Kothari told the M&G Online on Tuesday.
The City of Johannesburg’s attorneys have 10 days to respond to the application. The chief justice will then issue further directions on the hearing of the case.
The city gave notice of eviction to the residents under the National Building Regulations and Building Standards Act, which enables the city to prevent people under its jurisdiction from living in dangerous conditions.
Handing down judgement on March 26, SCA Judge Louis Harms said he found the city’s notice to vacate due to fire and health hazards not to be unconstitutional or unlawful. ”Moreover, the obligation of the occupiers to comply with that order is not dependent upon their being provided with alternative accommodation.”
The SCA, however, ordered the city to offer those evicted relocation to a temporary settlement area, which would provide basic sanitation, water and refuse services. — Sapa