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[LITIGATION UPDATE] Rycloff matter to be heard by Supreme Court of Appeal (26 August 2024).

On Tuesday, 27 August 2024, the Supreme Court of Appeal will hear arguments in City of Johannesburg  and Others v Occupiers of Portion 971 of the Farm Randjiesfontein No. 405 and Others. The City of Johannesburg is seeking to appeal the 2022 decision of the Gauteng Local Division of the High Court which ordered the City to provide the waste reclaimers with temporary emergency accommodation allowing them to live and sort their reclaimed waste. The City's appeal is based on the requirement that the alternative accommodation it would provide the reclaimers would allow for them to sort and store their materials overnight.

SERI represents over 100 waste reclaimers who faced eviction from the property known as Randjiesfontein farm in Midrand, Johannesburg. The property is vacant, undeveloped land located between a residential complex and a business park in Midrand, Johannesburg. The eviction was brought by Rycloff-Beleggings (Pty) Ltd,  the registered title-holder of the property. The occupiers are informal reclaimers who had  been residing on the property for at least five years. In addition to living on the property, the space has enabled them to eke out a living by sorting and storing their recyclable materials on the site.

The reclaimers contended that an eviction, without the provision of alternative accommodation, would render them homeless and without the ability to make a decent living. They submitted that the location of the alternative accommodation provided by the municipality should be where they would be able sort and store their recyclable materials and that it should be within reach to medium-income households who produce high-value waste. They argued in their submissions that allowing for an eviction order in the absence of the provision of alternative accommodation suitable for the reclaimers’ work would amount to a violation of a range of their constitutionally and internationally protected human rights.

In October 2022, the High Court ordered the City to provide the reclaimers with temporary emergency accommodation that would allow the evicted reclaimers to live and sort their reclaimed waste. The High Court found the rights of children are paramount in cases involving children such as the present one and that relocating the reclaimers to a place where they cannot earn a basic living as they presently do, would leave them at risk of being unable to maintain their dignity and care for their children. The Court also held that while all the parties’ rights are important, it would be unfair and therefore unconstitutional to uphold the other parties’ rights while the reclaimers go hungry.

In its appeal before the SCA, the City submits that the High Court's order amounts to "an undue overreaching extension of the obligations of the State in providing Emergency Temporary Accommodation to unlawful occupiers". They submit that this is because the reclaimers' commercial interests are not relevant for the court's consideration in terms of the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act, 19 of 1998 (“PIE Act”); and that the rights of children, under section 28 of the Constitution, are also not relevant for consideration under the PIE Act.

  • Access documents and read more about the case here.