Street name victory for metro
Tshwane metro has won an appeal in the Constitutional Court on Thursday which lifted the temporary ban on the changing of street names in Pretoria.
Tshwane metro may replace 25 old street names in Pretoria with names of liberation
struggle heroes, the Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday.
The court ruled against civil rights watchdog AfriForum. The court upheld an appeal by the metro against an interim order granted by the North Gauteng High Court judge Bill Prinsloo in 2013 which prevented the removal of street signs bearing the old names of streets pending a review application.
To restore the 25 street names would have cost the Tshwane taxpayers some R2,6 million.
The metro appealed a ruling by Prinsloo that it had to restore and replace street and road signs.
The Pretoria street name saga started in 2012 when the metro resolved to change some street names and to adopt new public participation policy guidelines for the process of renaming streets.
In a majority judgment on Thursday‚ Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng said having obtained a diversity of views‚ including those of AfriForum and other organisations and residents‚ the metro had rightly resolved to replace certain identified old street names.
Despite the fact that Tshwane metro had acted within its powers to rename the streets, the North Gauteng High Court nevertheless granted an order restraining the council from implementing its decision. At the same time, the metro had also been ordered to reinstate old names at the cost of R2.6-million, Mogoeng said.
“An interim interdict in this instance should in these instances be granted in the rarest of cases. Intrusion into the sphere of operation reserved only for the other arms of state is an exercise not to be unreflectingly or over-zealously carried out by a court of law‚” Mogoeng said.
AfriForum’s argument before court stated if the street names were changed, it would cause emotional harm to Afrikaner people who would lose their sense of belonging.
However, the court rejected this notion, pointing to the ongoing harm caused to previously disadvantaged people who have never had their history celebrated.
“The sense of place and sense of belonging contended for by AfriForum is highly insensitive to the sense of belonging of other cultural or racial groups. It is divisive‚ somewhat selfish and does not seem to have much regard for the centuries-old deprivation of ‘a sense of place and a sense of belonging’ that black people have had to endure‚” Mogoeng ruled.
He said AfriForum and its members did not have the right to have the old street names they treasured displayed forever.
“The only right AfriForum‚ like all other residents‚ has is to participate meaningfully in a properly facilitated process leading up to the change of street names.”
The judge said the old names may still have to be replaced should the review application by AfriForum be successful.
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