[imagesource: Kiara Worth / Mail & Guardian]

There is never a good time to have your home demolished, but the middle of winter, during a national lockdown due to a deadly pandemic, is far from ideal.

It’s also illegal, which is why the Western Cape High Court yesterday found in favour of residents of Hangberg, in Hout Bay, ruling that the City’s conduct was “unlawful and unconstitutional”.

Judge Gayaat Salie-Hlophe ruled that the City had to rebuild the structures, which had been demolished by City Law Enforcement, within 48 hours.

IOL with more:

The residents’ lawyer, Vernon Seymour, described the outcome as a victory for human rights.

“The court has shown the City that if you trample over people’s rights you will not get away with it. The City will now rethink the way they treat the poor. They are ordered to rebuild the structures within 48 hours and the chief registrar of the high court must be informed once this has been done,” Seymour said.

Image: Armand Hough/African News Agency(ANA)

Violent clashes broke out last month when the residents were left destitute after their homes were destroyed.

Responding on behalf of the City, Mayor Dan Plato said that it was “with disappointment that I note the judgment handed down”, adding that the City was considering its options.

That’s the same Plato who accused Bulelani Qholani, the man seen naked and fighting with law enforcement officers destroying an informal structure in Khayelitsha, of staging the whole thing to make the City look bad.

Clashes between law enforcement officers and residents of Hangberg have escalated in recent weeks, with the Mail & Guardian’s Kiara Worth speaking with Hangberg residents in the aftermath:

“I was so scared that my stomach was turning. I felt so helpless,” said Shadé Daizy, a resident of Hangberg.

She says it was her brother’s house that had been demolished. The structure, considered illegal by the City of Cape Town because he didn’t have approval to build on that piece of land, had been up for only a week. It was one of the structures that had been knocked down on June 11 after a demolition order was issued by the city. A violent incident had ensued in which police tear gassed the school and fired rounds of rubber bullets.

“When the police arrived [on June 19] they said they were just checking to see if the structure was occupied, which it was. There was even a child inside playing video games. We thought everything was fine because they didn’t have any documents and they said they wouldn’t do anything. But then they came back 10 minutes later and started tearing everything down,” Daizy says.

You can read that article in full here.

If the Democratic Alliance, which controls the Western Cape, wants to recover from a disastrous set of elections, and undo the recent damage done by another round of Helen Zille tweets, it’s going to have to start showing people of colour that it values their lives, and their livelihoods, sooner rather than later.

[sources:iol&mg]