The residents are seeking a final declaration that the city's decision to remove the security services was unlawful.
A view of Nugget Street Express building in Johannesburg’s Central Business District (CBD). Picture: Gallo Images/Fani Mahuntsi
The City of Joburg has been directed to comply with a court directive requiring it to restore security measures at six temporary emergency accommodation facilities housing about 600 people.
The ruling follows a dispute over the metropolitan municipality’s decision to withdraw security and access-control services from the buildings, despite residents’ concerns about their safety and the risk of the properties being hijacked.
Security withdrawn by City of Joburg without warning
Residents were placed in the city-owned buildings as part of measures to provide temporary emergency accommodation, with many placements stemming from previous court orders intended to prevent homelessness.
The municipality had provided security at the facilities for several years before withdrawing those services on 1 March 2026.
According to a judgment delivered by the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on 1 October 2026, the withdrawal took place without prior notice to or consultation with the affected residents.
“Since then, the buildings have had no access control and have faced a serious risk of being ‘hijacked’.
“The applicants repeatedly attempted to engage the city to restore security.
“When these attempts failed, the applicants launched an urgent application,” the judgment reads.
Order remains binding
The residents, together with the Inner City Federation (ICF) and other applicants, subsequently approached the court for urgent relief.
Their initial application resulted in an order on 3 August 2026 directing the City of Joburg to take “reasonable steps” to provide adequate and effective security at the facilities within 14 days.
The order was issued pending the final outcome of the broader legal dispute.
The applicants are seeking a final declaration that the city’s decision to remove the security services was unlawful, as well as an order compelling the permanent restoration of security.
Rather than complying with the August ruling, however, the municipality filed an application for leave to appeal on 31 August.
The city argued that filing the appeal automatically suspended the interim order and maintained that the order was effectively final because of the obligations it imposed on the municipality.
The applicants then returned to court, seeking to have the city compelled to comply and declared in contempt of court.
They also asked for a R1 million fine against the municipality, suspended on condition that it complied with the order, together with an order for the city to pay their legal costs.
Gauteng High Court says order is interim
Judge Leicester Rock Adams found that the 3 August order remained operational and that the municipality’s application for leave to appeal had not suspended it.
The judge rejected the contention that the ruling was final in nature or effect.
“The language is unequivocally interim,” the judge remarked, adding that “there is no ambiguity” on the interpretation of the ruling.
“Moreover, the rights of the parties are not finally determined.
“The order does not determine whether the applicants have a right to security services, nor whether the city’s removal of security was unlawful or unconstitutional. Those issues remain for final determination.”
The judge pointed out that those unresolved questions were central to the main case and had not been decided by the 3 August order.
The city had argued that the order should be regarded as final because complying with it would require “expenditure of millions of Rands and the restructuring of municipal policing and procurement within 14 days”.
Adams dismissed that argument.
“It cannot possibly be that the mere fact that an interim order requires a party to do something,even something involving financial expenditure, make it final in effect.
“If it did, every mandatory interim interdict would be final in effect, which would be absurd.”
City of Joburg not found guilty of contempt
Adams, however, stopped short of declaring the City of Joburg in contempt.
The judge accepted that the municipality had acted on a “genuine, albeit mistaken”, legal interpretation of the 3 August order rather than deliberately choosing to disregard the court.
“This is not a case of a party simply ignoring a court order; it is a case of a party acting on a legal position, however wrong that position may be.”
The applicants’ request for a contempt order was therefore dismissed.
Meanwhile, the court directed senior City of Johannesburg officials – including Mayor Dada Morero, municipal manager Floyd Brink and the Executive Mayor and human settlements director Khayalethu Qcibitole – to ensure that the municipality complies with the 3 August order.
