Court victory for UCT over ‘Shackville’

Interdict granted against five students

THE Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has granted a final interdict against five University of Cape Town students.

Alex Holtz, Masixole Mlandu, Chumani Maxwele, Slovo Magida and Zola Shokane were interdicted by UCT after a protest over student housing in February.

UCT then obtained an urgent application for an interim interdict, which was granted at the Western Cape High Court.

That interdict barred them from entering the university campus unless they had the university’s consent to be there for academic purposes or to occupy student housing that had been allocated to them.

It also prevented them from interfering with the rendering of university services and its decision-making processes; destroying, damaging or defacing university property; or participating in or inciting others to take part in unlawful conduct or protest action on university premises.

The SCA was approached to consider whether the Western Cape High Court was correct to grant a final interdict against the students. The appeal arose from a protest known as Shackville, during which protesters erected a shack along Residence Road on the upper campus and created an exclusion zone around it.

During that protest, statues and a war memorial were defaced with slogans, and portraits, paintings and photos were removed from the walls of buildings, and defaced and burnt.

In its judgment, the SCA said universities had been engulfed by waves of student protests conducted under names such as #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall since last year.

“The protests, and the actions of protesters, university administrators, campus security and the police are the subject of heated debate in the media. This appeal is not about the merits or legitimacy of those protests. It involves no judgment on the conflicting views of the students and their supporters, the university administrators, the politicians and others caught up in these events,” read the judgment.

Holtz, who was expelled from the university along with Mlandu and Maxwele, said her future was uncertain, and she was consulting her lawyer.

UCT spokesperson Pat Lucas said the SCA had confirmed that the respondents were jointly liable for the costs of the order.

“The SCA confirmed that the five appellants against an interdict that was made a final order of the court on May 11 are interdicted from erecting unauthorised structures on the campus or damaging any of UCT’s premises,” she said.