Cape Town - The Stellenbosch Municipality has been ordered to return building materials to the owners of an informal structure after the high court found the demolition of the structure, in Lanquedoc, unlawful.
A group of people had illegally settled on the land in 2020, and the Stellenbosch Municipality then instructed law enforcement to dismantle the structures.
This was done in absence of a court order.
The settlement had grown to over 100 structures between August 2020 and November 2020.
A couple had decided to take on the municipality in the Western Cape High Court.
Stellenbosch Municipality spokesperson, Stuart Grobbelaar, said: “The Municipality has taken note of the judgment handed down yesterday and we are currently studying the judgment to decide on the way forward.”
Efforts to get comment from the applicants in the matter was unsuccessful at deadline.
The illegally occupied land, valued at R44 million, is registered in the name of the Dwars River Valley Community Development Trust.
According to information contained in the judgment, the Trust wanted to sell the land to the Municipality, which was unable to afford it at that price.
High Court Judge Ashley Binns-Ward said the “matter is not without its ironies”.
“For the most part, it concerns an application by or on behalf of a group of persons who, having taken the law into their own hands”.
“(On) October 23, 2020 and the following weeks, backyarders decided the need for housing was too pressing to await the outcome of negotiations between the Trust and the Municipality and started occupying Erf 10.
“Approximately between 100 and 110 structures were erected in this time. Some of the land invaders were arrested upon a complaint by Trust, but released without charge after a court appearance on October 26, 2020,” the judgment read.
Following a number of talks, the municipal law enforcement officers helped by the Red Ants and the SAPS public order policing unit, demolished structures believed to be “unoccupied”.
“In my view, however, that is a regrettable attitude for an organ of state to adopt in litigation in which it is alleged that it has been guilty of a breach of a person’s fundamental human rights. It is an attitude that is inconsistent with the culture of openness and accountability that is an integral aspect of the state’s duty to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights in the Bill of Rights…
“The inexorable conclusion to be drawn from the aforementioned factors is that Nyakombi and Konco (applicants) were in peaceful and undisturbed possession of the structure at the time it was demolished, and had been for three weeks. It follows that on the peculiar facts of the current case there was no lawful basis for the Municipality to demolish the structure without a court order, even if its officials were reasonably of the opinion that it was unoccupied at the time.
“Nyakombi and Konco are entitled to the return of the materials with which their demolished structure was constructed. The Municipality has tendered that. The same does not apply to their application for an order that the structure be reconstructed,” Binns-Ward ordered.
Cape Times