Echoes of District Six evictions in case before the Constitutional Court

Judgement in the eviction of City of Cape Town tenants from Bromwell Street in Woodstock was reserved in the Constitutional Court on Tuesday.During the hearing, Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga asked the City if the eviction echoed the displacement of families from District Six under apartheid. ‘Is this not a refined, modern-day District Six type of displacement?’ asked Justice Madlanga.

Arguing for the residents, advocate Sheldon Magardie said the City prioritised social housing over accommodation in the inner city, and this ultimately excluded people rendered homeless following an eviction. This, Magardie argued, was unreasonable, irrational and unconstitutional. Many of the Bromwell Street residents would not qualify for the City’s social housing programmes ‘because they don’t earn enough money to qualify’, said Magardie.

In a lengthy exchange between Justice Leona Theron and Magardie, Justice Theron questioned the lack of clarity from NU regarding which specific housing policy and which specific sections in that policy were unconstitutional. ‘We are dealing with lawful tenants who were only evicted because of the consequences of the City’s housing policy. We are not talking about illegal occupiers … This particular community is one of a handful of communities that managed to survive apartheid intact, in a white area … What this process is doing is aggravating spatial apartheid by pushing poor coloured people to the outskirts of the city,’ said Justice Chaskalson.

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