Slovo residents to appeal eviction ruling

Ben Maclennan

CAPE TOWN - Residents of Joe Slovo informal settlement say they will appeal against an eviction order granted on Monday by the Cape High Court.

The order was handed down by judge president John Hlophe following an urgent application by state-owned developer Thubelisha Homes, Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, and Western Cape Housing MEC Richard Dyantyi.

Anti-Eviction Campaign co-ordinator Mzonke Poni told Sapa: “We really do not welcome the judgment because we are saying there’s no way a judge can issue an order to evict more than 20,000 people without considering the impact it will have on their livelihoods.

“Right now we will have to sit down and strategise, but what we know is, we are going to appeal against the judgment.”

Hundreds of Joe Slovo residents, who had gathered in the street outside the court, chanted angry slogans after the ruling was handed down.

Some, carrying sjamboks and a knobkierie, danced in the street under the watchful eye of police.

Several carried posters declaring that if they were evicted, they would not vote in future.

The residents are being evicted to make way for the construction of the N2 Gateway housing project.

In his 51-page ruling, Hlophe ordered the first 45 families to leave next week, followed by the others in batches to January next year.

“The state is in no way attempting to re-enact the apartheid ghost of forced removals from the past,” he said.

The department of housing was “merely complying with a constitutional obligation to provide adequate housing.

“This is not a mass eviction, but a strategic relocation, working in phases according to availability of Štemporary relocation areasÆ and even with assistance for the moving of residents.”

He said the Joe Slovo residents would not be put on the streets to fend for themselves, but would be moved to much better accommodation at the expense of the state.

“It is... envisaged that once the houses have been built and completed, a significant number of the residents will be offered the opportunity of returning to Joe Slovo, to occupy the houses in terms of the qualifying criteria.

“It was not seriously argued on behalf of the respondents ŠJoe Slovo residentsÆ that those criteria are unreasonable or unlawful.”

Hlophe said the government was constitutionally obliged to realise the right of every person to access to adequate housing.

Courts were obliged to ensure that institutions best equipped to make policy choices were not paralysed by “indiscriminate challenges” to government socio-economic policies.

Hlophe also dismissed a counter-application brought by the residents on the basis that they had a legitimate expectation that at least 70 percent of the new housing at Joe Slovo would go to residents of the settlement, and 30 percent to backyard dwellers from nearby Langa.

Director-general of the national housing department Itumeleng Kotsoane said in reaction the judgment was important, not only to the people of Cape Town, but to the nation.

“We have national and international imperatives to eradicate informal settlements and contribute to the integration of our people,” he said.

“It is critical for us to firmly establish the principle that we cannot allow the relatively narrow interests of individuals to block greater societal progress.”

In September last year, residents clashed violently with police over the evictions.

Some partly-constructed homes on the Slovo site were damaged, and several people arrested.

Joe Slovo is one of Cape Town’s biggest informal settlements, containing about 4500 crowded shacks and roughly 20,000 people.

It is 10km from the city centre.

- Sapa