Lessons from Stuart Wilson’s Presentation to Abahlali on Housing Rights

Stuart Wilson is a top anti-eviction lawyer. He won a court case that stopped evictions from the Johannesburg city centre when the Municipality there tried to force the poor out of the city. On 2 December 2006 he came to share his knowledge with Abahlali at a workshop organised with COHRE.. He explained to Abahlali that Section 26 (3) of the Constitution says that:

“NO ONE MAY BE EVICTED FROM THEIR HOME, OR HAVE THEIR HOME DEMOLISHED, WITHOUT AN ORDER OF COURT MADE AFTER CONSIDERING ALL THE RELEVANT CIRCUMSTANCES.”

This means that any eviction for demolition without a court order is illegal. This means that the Municipality is breaking the law all the time because they always evict without court orders. If you hear that your settlement will face evictions or demolitions you should get a lawyer straight away and take the Municipality to court.

A court is not allowed to give an order for an eviction without considering:

* How long people have lived on the land where they are staying

* Whether or not “suitable alternative accommodation” is available to the people to be evicted

If you have lived in an area for a long time, if you work there, and if suitable alternative accommodation has not been arranged for you then the court should not grant the eviction order. Suitable accommodation is accommodation of good quality that is not too far from where you live and where your children go to school. A formal jondolo in the bush, like the ‘house’ in Park Gate, is not suitable accommodation.

It is also illegal for the Municipality to evict you if they have not given you notice in writing at least 14 days before the eviction. That written notice must also be clear and in a language that you can understand. It must also tell you why they want to evict you and it must tell you that you have the right to go to the court to oppose the eviction and that you have the right to ask legal aid to represent you.

The real strength of the poor comes from our numbers. Together we are strong. But with good lawyers on our side we can also use the courts to stop evictions because the Municipality is breaking the law when they evict without court orders and without making alternative accommodation available.

The Municipality wants to push the poor out of the city for the 2010 World Cup so that we are hidden from the eyes of the rich foreigners. If we stand together and fight together in our communities, in the streets and in the courts we will defeat the municipality and force them to upgrade our communities where we live.

* 3 days after the Abahlali housing rights workshop at which Stuart Wilson spoke people in the Motala Heights settlement were able to use the legal knowledge that they had gained to successfully stop an attempted illegal eviction by the eThekwini Municipality.