{"id":237174,"date":"2022-09-14T21:37:30","date_gmt":"2022-09-14T19:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/evicted-park-dwellers-seek-damages-from-city-of-johannesburg\/"},"modified":"2022-09-14T21:37:30","modified_gmt":"2022-09-14T19:37:30","slug":"evicted-park-dwellers-seek-damages-from-city-of-johannesburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/evicted-park-dwellers-seek-damages-from-city-of-johannesburg\/","title":{"rendered":"Evicted \u201cpark dwellers\u201d seek damages from City of Johannesburg"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/Unknown%20photographer\/albert_park.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"warn_big\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/evicted-park-dwellers-seek-damages-from-city-of-johannesburg.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Johannesburg City officials and members of the Johannesburg Metropolitan police were accompanied by armed private security guards when people living in the Alberts Farm Conservancy were evicted on 30 August in defiance of a court interdict. Photo from the court application.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Conservancy occupiers say City officials came with armed private security to tear down their homes and \u201csteal their goods\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>The eviction was in spite of a court interdict.<\/li>\n<li>They have now secured another interdict and want constitutional damages of R5,000 each.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A group of \u201cpark dwellers\u201d, who have been evicted twice without a court order, once in direct contravention of an interdict, are now seeking constitutional \u201cdamages\u201d of R5,000 each from the City of Johannesburg for its unlawful conduct.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/evicted-park-dwellers-seek-damages-from-city-of-johannesburg.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>The matter was set down in the Johannesburg High Court on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The City, the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD), the Minister of Police and the Gauteng police commissioner have said they are opposing the application.<\/p>\n<p>However, the City, which consented to both interdicts, has yet to file its papers.<\/p>\n<p>The 28 applicants in the matter reside in the Alberts Farm Conservancy (AFC) in Randburg, one of the city\u2019s biggest green \u201clungs\u201d. They say they have a \u201creasonable\u201d relationship with local residents and tourists, because they help keep the area clean.<\/p>\n<p>One is a popular car guard at the weekly park run. Others are self-employed as waste recyclers and doing odd jobs, earning between R1,000 and R3,000 a month. (Read <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/a-small-patch-carpet-all-thats-left-his-home\/\">about this community<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>Some have been living in the conservancy for 15 years. They say they have nowhere else to go, and they need to be close to the municipal dump in order to sort through waste for recycling.<\/p>\n<p>Thamsanqa Tomodi, who deposed to the affidavit in the court action, said in August last year, representatives of the City, the JMPD and private security arrived unannounced, without a court order, and proceeded to demolish their homes and erect fences and gates around the conservancy.<\/p>\n<p>They launched urgent proceedings in the High Court, securing an interdict and an order that the City return their possessions, including building materials. If the City was unable to comply, it was to provide them with building materials, blankets, bedding and mattresses.<\/p>\n<p>The City was also ordered to give them 24-hour access to the conservancy.<\/p>\n<p>An interdict, stopping any further harassment, dispossession or eviction, was made final, by consent, in November 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Tomodi, in his affidavit, said, \u201cOur possessions were never returned to us. But shortly after that, representatives of the City dropped off second-hand clothing and bedding as well as some tents. This was not an actual fulfilment of the order, but we were powerless to challenge them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last month, a year later, the occupiers were forced to return to court to secure another urgent order, after another \u201craid\u201d on the morning of 30 August by the City, JMPD, SAPS and another private security company.<\/p>\n<p>Tomodi said some of the \u201cenforcers\u201d were armed with shotguns.<\/p>\n<p>He \u201ccautiously\u201d advised the officials about the previous court order, but he was told they were doing a \u201cpark clean up\u201d and he should take some clothing and leave.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWithout my consent and before my eyes, my belongings were thrown into the back of a truck, together with the belongings of others,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Their homes were torn down.<\/p>\n<p>He said when he asked to see a notice of eviction, he was \u201cadmonished\u201d and told that he was \u201ctrying to be a lawyer\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was treated poorly, I was physically pushed, grabbed by my clothing and had a shotgun pointed at me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was treated as a nuisance and not a human being.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Others lost everything. They were not given an opportunity to get clothes, shoes or the toys they\u2019d bought for their children.<\/p>\n<p>One said a member of the \u201cenforcement group\u201d had pressed the barrel of a shotgun against his back and then, when he turned around, cocked and primed it, as it was against his chest.<\/p>\n<p>Tomodi said they were left without shelter, in winter, with nothing.<\/p>\n<p>In supporting affidavits, the applicants confirmed what had been taken from them, including money, clothing, bedding, tents (which were given by the City when they last demolished their homes), cell phones, ID books, tools and as one said \u201cmy dignity\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Two, who have cancer, said their medication was taken.<\/p>\n<p>The second interdict was granted, again with the City\u2019s consent, on 2 September.<\/p>\n<p>The respondents were given until 15 September to explain why they violated the previous interdict, why the court should not declare that they had acted contrary to the Constitution and the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act, and why they should not pay the occupants R5,000 each.<\/p>\n<p>The order also directed the immediate return of the occupants\u2019 possessions.<\/p>\n<p>However, Tomodi said that the next day only one JMPD truck arrived as opposed to three, which were used to take their possessions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were displeased with the condition of the returned goods.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe voted not to accept the returned goods, because they were damaged, missing, mixed up and incomplete,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>In an opposing affidavit, SAPS Senior Legal Administration Officer Desre Grobler said at the request of the City, five police officers had been present \u201cmerely to observe and monitor the operation\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUpon conclusion, SAPS, having been satisfied that it managed to ensure that public order was maintained and that the citizens in and around the park were secured, left,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>In reply, Tomodi said on this version, which was denied, the police had \u201cstood idly by\u201d while their property was \u201cstolen\u201d and they were harassed, assaulted, manhandled and had firearms pointed at them.<\/p>\n<p>He said they were, at the very least, complicit in that they took a decision not to act to protect them.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2022 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/evicted-park-dwellers-seek-damages-from-city-of-johannesburg.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Johannesburg City officials and members of the Johannesburg Metropolitan police were accompanied by armed private security guards when people living in the Alberts Farm Conservancy were evicted on 30 August in defiance of a court interdict. Photo from the court application. Conservancy occupiers say City officials came with armed private security to tear down their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":237175,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-237174","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/evicted-park-dwellers-seek-damages-from-city-of-johannesburg.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}