SERI: Durban Officials Face Imprisonment for Cato Crest Evictions

Issued by: Socio-Economic Rights Institute of SA (SERI)
9 September 2013

DURBAN OFFICIALS FACE IMPRISONMENT FOR CATO CREST EVICTIONS

eThekwini Municipal Manager and Head of the Land Invasions Unit ordered to appear in Durban High Court to explain why they shouldn’t be imprisoned for contempt of court.

On Friday 6 September 2013 Abahlali baseMjondolo and residents of Cato Crest informal settlement approached the Durban High Court for a third time, to prevent the eThekwini Municipality from illegally destroying their homes. They applied for a contempt of court order against eThekwini Municipality. The Durban High Court granted a rule nisi (an interim order to be confirmed at a later date) which compels the Municipal Manager of eThekwini Municipality and the Head of the Land Invasion Unit to appear at court on Thursday 12 September to explain why they should not be imprisoned for 30 days for allowing illegal evictions to continue at Cato Crest in contempt of an order obtained on 2 September which prohibited the demolition of shacks.

The residents were forced to return to court after the municipality continued to illegally evict residents of Cato Crest last week, despite the order which interdicted and restrained the municipality from evicting residents or demolishing their structures without a court order. The order further directed the municipality to construct “temporary habitable dwellings that afford shelter, privacy and amenities at least equivalent to those destroyed, and which are capable of being dismantled, at the site at which their previous informal housing structures were demolished” to the residents whose shacks were demolished on 1 and 2 September. This has not been done.

According to Stuart Wilson, executive director of SERI, “When the state wilfully disobeys a court order, it makes a criminal of itself. It subverts the rule of law. It tears the fabric of our constitutional democracy. It is unacceptable that poor residents of an informal settlement must go to court three times in order to stop the illegal demolition of their homes. It is equally disturbing that the only way to hold a municipality accountable to enforce court orders is to bring individual office-bearers to court on pain of imprisonment for contempt.”

Download the rule nisi for contempt of court order (6 September 2013) here.

Read more on the Cato Crest evictions here.

Contact details:

Kate Tissington, senior researcher at SERI: 011 356 5862 / 072 220 9125 / kate@seri-sa.org