The Cape High Court has reserved judgment on the application by government and its housing agency, Thubelisha Homes, to move thousands of Joe Slovo residents.

Judge President John Hlophe’s decision followed hours of argument by the opposing legal teams and was greeted with a mixed reaction.

“We are heading into the festive season and people are preparing for the holiday. If judgment were given today and it went against us, it would have meant a bleak Christmas for us,” said Mzwanele Zulu, a Joe Slovo community leader.

“In this sense, it is convenient for us that judgment was reserved.”

The Housing Department was confident the judgment would be in its favour. If it was, it would ensure people were moved to temporary accommodation in Delft with minimal disruption, housing director-general Itumeleng Kotsoane said.

“We are on the right track. A critical aspect of this case is that if the outcome is negative for us, it will relate to the state’s ability to intervene in situations where people live in unacceptable conditions and on floodplains or river banks.

“If we win, it will confirm the state’s right to intervene in such situations.”

Earlier, Hlophe ruled against the residents’ application challenging Thubelisha’s legal authority to evict them. He said he would provide reasons during judgment in the eviction case.

Geoff Budlender and Peter Hathorne, appearing for the residents, argued that the community should rightfully remain on the land because of an expectation the City of Cape Town had created.

The council had provided services such as electricity, water and sanitation and had numbered shacks. Red cards given to residents as proof of their applications for houses had strengthened the expectation created, the counsel argued.

They said the department had reneged on a promise to give Joe Slovo residents access to 70 percent of houses it was to build on the land as part of the government’s N2 Gateway housing project.

The balance was intended for people living in back yards in Bokmakierie, Gugulethu and other areas.

If the government and Thubelisha Homes wanted to evict residents, people living in Joe Slovo should be identified individually, not evicted as a group, Budlender and Hathorne said.

Michael Donen, for the department, and Steve Kirk-Cohen, for Thubelisha, said the government had a duty to provide services. The red cards were nothing but proof that residents had applied for formal homes, they said.

Donen said the government’s application was not for an eviction per se, but for Joe Slovo residents to be moved to Delft so the land they now occupied could be used to build houses.

Kirk-Cohen gave the court a schedule of the relocations envisaged and said these would be effected in stages.

Outside the court about 2 000 people from Joe Slovo danced and sang in the street for a second day. After a brief report from their leaders, they headed home peacefully.

· aziz.hartley@inl.co.za

o This article was originally published on page 3 of Cape Times on December 14, 2007