Three recent urgent applications filed by the LRC in the Johannesburg High Court in late 2008 met with success, thanks to the courage of the clients involved and the commitment and teamwork of lawyers, candidate attorneys and interns in the LRC’s Johannesburg office and Constitutional Litigation Unit.

Mntambo
In October 2008, private security personnel aided by the South African Police Service (SAPS) forcibly and illegally evicted several hundred occupiers of a building in Doornfontein. During the eviction, occupiers were shot with rubber bullets and teargas and beaten with batons. Many also had their property damaged. That night, many of the occupiers, including small children, slept in the street outside the building. There were approximately 30 children living in the building, some less than a year.

The occupiers approached the LRC for assistance. Despite negotiations, the owners refused to restore occupation, and so LRC lawyers drafted an urgent application and obtained a court order the following day to let the occupants back into the building. 

LRC lawyers then went to the building and worked into the night to try to secure compliance with the court order. When the owners and their security guards continued to refuse to allow entry, the LRC had no choice but to request the sheriff’s assistance. For some time, there was a standoff between the sheriff and about 30 “Red Ants” who arrived with him, and the owners’ security personnel. 

Finally, at about 22h00, the sheriff and the Red Ants broke the padlock, the security personnel quietly left the building and the occupiers peacefully moved back in.

Lobola
Another group of residents from an inner city building also approached the LRC after they were illegally evicted. This group was also forcibly evicted without notice and without being shown a court order authorizing the eviction. There were approximately 400 people living in the building, including many young children. Many residents make about R1500 a month in salary or are unemployed and did not have another place to stay if evicted.

Several hundred of the occupiers slept in the street that night. Our deponent, Ms Lobola, was a young woman with a 6-week old infant, and they were among the occupants who slept on the street the night of the eviction.

LRC lawyers drafted an urgent application and the matter was argued in court the following day. The court granted an interim order restoring possession, and also joined the SAPS in order to compel them to explain the role that they played in the illegal eviction.

Zhou and Kandowe
The LRC had previously obtained bail for three Zimbabwean men, all of them teachers, with valid asylum-seeker permits, in the Magistrate’s Court. Two of the men went to the Crown Mines Refugee Reception Office to attempt to verify their status as asylum-seekers, which was one of their bail conditions.