Housing rights in South Africa: Invasions, evictions, the media, and the courts in the cases of Grootboom, Alexandra, and Bredell

Abstract

Low-income residents in urban South Africa have made use of the courts to fight for what they perceive as their democratic right to a home in the city. Despite a democratic Constitution since 1996, with a Bill of Rights that includes socioeconomic rights, such as adequate housing (albeit with a proviso), there is little consistency in the outcome of the route of access to the city through the judiciary. Over the past two years, three eviction-related cases that involved court applications by illegal occupiers for short periods dominated the news in South Africa, and are frequently referred to in the media. Each had a different outcome, none of them satisfactory, highlighting the limitations of the judiciary as a route to democratic access to the city. The cases discussed in this paper raise the question as to the role of courts in a democratic, yet unequally developed country like South Africa. Due to the high level of inequality (eighteen million people, that is 45 precent of the population, have an income of up to R345/adult, which is the poverty line as defined by UNDP [2000], in Liebenberg [2001:234]), very close to half of the population requires the protection of their socio-economic rights through the Constitution. However, when called upon by the poor, the judiciary is seemingly reluctant to interfere in the affairs of the executive arm of government. It is equally reluctant to rule in favour of the poor when the economy or investor confidence is at stake. As primary informer of investor sentiment in a neo-liberal dispensation, the media is now in an increasingly delicate position where reporting on a land invasion may do more harm than leaving it ignored. Royston (1998) analysed the strategies of low-income communities for access to the city during the late apartheid years, when the basis of exclusion was shifting