Western Cape High Court Judgement
On 30 August 2017, the Western Cape High Court delivered a judgement which found that the City of Cape Town had infringed on both the landowners' constitutional right to property and the occupiers' constitutional right to housing. The court dismissed applications by the landowners to evict the occupiers ordered the City to negotiate to purchase the land. Should the negotiations fail, the City was instructed to consider expropriating the land. [8] [9]
Judge Chantal Fortuin wrote that the ruling was based on several considerations. These included the impossibility of enforcing evictions, and the fact that the occupants would be rendered homeless if evicted. [16] Fortuin wrote in her judgement "it is undisputed that the City cannot provide alternative accommodation for the occupiers". [8]
As of 2022, the City told media, "Legal processes are taking place for the transfer of property." [17] The land was finally purchased in July of 2024, seven years after the original judgement was handed down. At that time, the City said that it would begin providing services to the Marikana settlement "after all feasibility studies have been concluded, as well as a public participation process to discuss development options". [18]
Ownership of the Land
The City of Cape Town had argued that the 2013 evictions by its ALIU were legal and did not require a court-order in part because the land was city-owned. [19] However, this land was actually owned by two private owners. One was an individual, Iris Fischer, and the other was NTWA Dumela Investments. [20] The land that was occupied is part of a larger parcel of 200h of land bought by NTWA Dumela Investments in 2007. [21]
The 2017 Western Cape High Court judgement on the matter included three groups of land owners. [22] The first was Iris Fischer, who had been living on the property since 1969, though herself and her two sons were estimated to occupy only around 5% of the land they owned at the time of the occupation. The second was a group that included Manfred Stock and NTWA Dumela Investments. The land owned by this group had been acquired in parts over approximately 40 years. The third was Copper Moon Trading, which acquired an erf in 2007. [8]
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