Mercury: Concourt triumph for shack dwellers

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5203399

Eviction law rendered ineffective
Concourt triumph for shack dwellers

October 15, 2009 Edition 1

Wendy Jasson da Costa

SHACK dwellers around the country have reason to celebrate after the Constitutional Court yesterday ruled that section 16 of the KwaZulu-Natal Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Act was invalid.

According to the Constitutional Court, section 16 gave the government the power to determine when the owner or person in charge of land or a building, which was illegally occupied, must evict the squatters.

If the owner failed to comply, the relevant municipality would have to launch proceedings to evict the occupiers.

Yesterday’s ruling means that the government can no longer compel anyone to evict squatters, rendering the act toothless.

The challenge to the act was brought by Abahlali baseMjondolo (shack dwellers’ movement) and was seen as a victory for all those living in shacks, as the KZN act was widely regarded as a blueprint for similar legislation in other provinces.

Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke noted that section 16 of the act “will make residents of informal settlements, who are invariably unlawful occupiers, more vulnerable to evictions should an MEC decide to issue a notice under section 16”.

He also found that the power given to the government to issue a notice was “over-broad and irrational”, because it applied to any unlawful occupier on any land or in any building, even if it was not a slum, and was not properly related to the purpose of the act, which was to eliminate or prevent the re-emergence of slums.

The Constitutional Court, however, dismissed Abahlali’s request for the entire act to be declared invalid.

Yesterday, Abahlali members, who number about 10 000 in KZN, said they would celebrate by slaughtering two cows.

Kate Tissington, a researcher at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, said: “The Slums Act equates the elimination of slums with the eviction of people living in them and was intended to make that a much more frequent and easily facilitated occurrence.”

She said the core focus of the act was on facilitating the eradication of slums, not on providing adequate housing.

“While it ostensibly allows the government to fast-track housing delivery, the act has the pernicious effect of actively encouraging the eviction of unlawful occupiers living in informal settlements and buildings, without taking into account their circumstances or the provision of alternative accommodation,” said Tissington.

She said informal settlements and slum conditions were generally a symptom of a bigger problem in the country relating to access to work.