Lwandle evictions contrary to constitution and decency

SCORES of families watched in horror as their homes were demolished by officials during one of Cape Town’s coldest winter nights this week. The demolitions left hundreds of schoolchildren without a home at a time when they should be studying for their June exams. Predictably, the incident has resulted in accusations and counteraccusations flying between roads agency Sanral and the City of Cape Town, as well as between the DA, which runs the Western Cape, and the ANC.

The homes, most of them corrugated-iron shacks, were built illegally in Lwandle, near Strand, on a piece of land Sanral owns.

But it is the insensitive manner in which the whole saga has been handled that has angered most people.

Sanral and the City of Cape Town have every right to take action against anyone breaking the law, but the process followed in evicting the Lwandle community appears to have been illegal.

By all accounts, there was no court order giving authorities the right to evict the residents from the area. It appears that authorities used a January 24 interim interdict that had been granted against people “intending to occupy” the property, which clearly excludes those “currently occupying the property at the date of the granting of this order”. The people evicted this week had already occupied the Lwandle land.

This total disregard of a court ruling and abuse of our legal system is outrageous and should be condemned.

It is also unacceptable that, despite a previous Constitutional Court ruling that a city has a duty to provide emergency housing for evicted people even if that eviction had been done by a private company, Cape Town failed to fulfil this duty.

Access to housing is a constitutionally guaranteed right. Section 26 (3) of the constitution states that no one’s home may be demolished without an order of the court.

The actions of both Sanral and the City of Cape Town appear to go against this spirit.

It is for this reason that Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu should be commended for promptly setting up a ministerial inquiry into the matter.

The investigation will look into all the circumstances leading up to the demolitions as well as the conflict between Sanral and the City of Cape Town.

Hopefully, the probe will be concluded as soon as possible and steps will be taken against those whose illegal actions resulted in the suffering of so many families.