High court ruling highlights City’s illegal practices
IN A recent High Court ruling that was made an order of court, Acting Judge Lesley Weinkove ruled against the City of Cape Town, forcing it to apply for a proper eviction order should it wish to evict the homeless people occupying City land in Acacia Road, Parkwood.
This effectively means that the City’s brutal eviction raids on two occasions in Parkwood in February 2016 were not only illegal, but also unconstitutional as the high court had not granted it any eviction order to destroy the shacks and confiscate the people’s meagre building materials.
This is not the first time that the City has illegally evicted homeless people in Cape Town.
As far back as 2001, the City illegally evicted families in Valhalla Park, which the High Court also declared illegal. Then followed further illegal raids in Bonnytoun Wynberg (2005), Grassy Park (2006), Fairways (2006), Tafelsig (2015) and Lwandle (2014), amongst several others.
After the City’s illegal evictions in Parkwood this year, Bernard Joseph, of the EFF, promised to provide legal assistance to the indigent people.
However, all that the EFF did was to transport the victims to their offices to sign membership forms prior to the recent local government elections.
At their first High Court hearing, the victims had to represent themselves and, only after the intervention of the ANC, legal assistance was arranged through an all-female legal team consisting of attorney Rehana Khan-Parker and advocate Zaytoen Cornelisson.
The City has since failed to comply with a request for basic human rights like water and sanitation, which were requested by KhanParker in May 2016 in time for winter.
Currently, 47 households, consisting of nine babies, 19 children and 131 adults, only have access to one tap and one toilet on site.
The City continues to act mala fides as ward councillor William Akim and council officials met the victims on September 20 to discuss the court case without the legal team of the victims being present.
I, with the legal team, will be assisting the indigent people of Parkwood to make submissions to the Human Rights Commission and the Social Justice Coalition to intervene to protect the basic human rights of the poorest of the poor against the might of an arrogant DA administration.
I also repeat my call made in my submission to the Lwandle Commission of Inquiry for Minister of Human Settlements Lindiwe Sisulu to launch a formal investigation into the DA regime in Cape Town and the Western Cape for continuously violating the basic human rights of the most vulnerable members of our society.
Arendse is a community activist