High court rules against hawkers
Ilse de Lange
The High Court in Pretoria has overturned an interdict obtained by a group of informal traders to stop the Tshwane Metro Police Department from harassing them.
Four of the hawkers, who say they represent the Tshwane Barekishi Forum, in May obtained an interim order against the metro police from harassing forum members and seizing their goods pending the finalisation of an application to force police to inform hawkers in writing where their goods were taken.
The City of Tshwane opposed the application, saying the court should not condone the unlawful action of hawkers who refused to be registered, traded without licences and ignored the city’s bylaws. Judge Nomsa Khumalo will give her ruling next week.
The hawkers have accused the city of imposing unfair and unconstitutional conditions when renewing licences by limiting their trading hours and denying them a chance to state their case.
They said this had caused many of the forum members to go back to selling in the streets without licences and accused the metro police of harassing and intimidating them and resorting to violence when they tried to protect their goods.
The city’s metro police chief Johanna Nkomo said in an affidavit the hawkers lacked authority to litigate against the city; obtained an interdict without even notifying the municipality; and failed to provide proof of their harassment claims, which the police denied.
Nkomo denied the city imposed unreasonable trading hours and said it would create unrest if hawkers operated without licenses and did as they wished.
the Child for South Africa to scrap plans to stop issuing birth certificates to foreign children.
The Centre for Child Law, Lawyers for Human Rights, the Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town and the University of Cape Town’s Refugee Law Clinic yesterday said they sharply criticised proposed changes to the Births and Deaths Registration Act aimed at stopping the issuing of birth certificates to foreign children.
Where all children were previously issued with birth certificates as required by international law on children’s rights, the new regulations propose that foreign children be issued with a mere “confirmation of birth” certificate and they should then apply to their embassies for certificates from their country of nationality.
The organisations said in terms of international law, it was the responsibility of the country of birth to issue a birth certificate, regardless of whether citizenship had also been granted.
They said South Africa’s plans violated children’s constitutional right to a name and nationality and various other international law instruments. It amounted to unfair discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin and birth.
“This is particularly harmful to refugee and asylum seeker children because they cannot go to their embassies, which would jeopardise their protection in SA, and to orphaned and abandoned children who cannot prove their nationalities because their parents are absent, and children who do not have a country of nationality,” they said.
They added that home affairs wanted to remove birth registration for foreign children entirely, despite a recommendation by the UN child rights committee that South Africa remove all requirements under legislation and regulations dealing with birth registration and nationality which may have punitive or discriminatory impacts on certain groups.
“Without a birth certificate, children face immense barriers to basic services and human rights such as education, health and social services. The birth certificate also allows stateless children to apply for safeguards which gives them citizenship where they have no other citizenship.” – ANA