Constitutional Water Rights Judgment Gets It Wrong

Date posted: 21 October 2009
View this article online here: http://www.sacsis.org.za/site/article/373.1

On 08 October 2009, the Constitutional Court handed down its first water rights judgment. The case – Mazibuko & Others v City of Johannesburg & Others – was brought by five impoverished residents in Phiri, Soweto, on behalf of themselves, all similarly-situated residents and everyone in the public interest. The applicants challenged the City’s free basic water policy for being insufficient to meet the basic needs of large, poor, multi-dwelling households. They also challenged the lawfulness of prepayment water meters, which had been installed against their will and result in automatic cut-off of the water supply following the exhaustion of the free basic water supply unless additional water credit is purchased.