20 June 2024
Ndifuna Ukwazi (NU) and Reclaim the City (RTC) have filed for leave to appeal to the Constitutional Court against the recent judgment by the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in the Tafelberg Case. The sale of the Tafelberg property in 2015 triggered massive outcry and brought to the fore the debate on how public land is used and disposed of, especially in the context of more than a 365 000 housing backlog and continued segregation and inequality in Cape Town after apartheid. This is poignantly highlighted in the “Mother City” documentary, which opens at the Encounters Documentary Film Festival on 20 June 2024.
While the sale of the Tafelberg property was successfully set aside by the High Court in 2020, there are issues of great public importance and interest raised in the Tafelberg Case which still require clarification and determination by the Constitutional Court. This includes whether the Western Cape Government and City of Cape Town have failed in their constitutional and statutory obligations to redress spatial injustice in central Cape Town and deliver on the rights to equitable access to land and adequate housing.
The SCA set aside the High Court’s orders which found that the Province and the City had indeed failed in their obligation to redress spatial apartheid in central Cape Town and which required the Province and the City to report to the Court on its plan to remedy this.
NU’s application for leave to appeal points out, amongst other things, that the SCA mis-characterised the nature of the case. This is reflected in the SCA asking the wrong question of whether there is a right to social housing in a specific location instead of asking and interrogating, whether the Province and the City have taken reasonable measures to redress spatial apartheid in Central Cape Town.
The Province and City are opposing the application for leave to appeal.
Statement from Disha Govender, Head of the Ndifuna Ukwazi Law Centre:
The Province and City, in opposing our application for leave to appeal, continue to minimise the significance of central Cape Town – which is a point of origin as it were in our shameful colonial and apartheid history. It is the area which the apartheid government sought to make white only and which remains segregated to date with poor working class people of colour still unable to access save for the purposes of providing labour. We ask where is the redress, where is the spatial justice without affordable housing in central Cape Town?
Statement from Buhle Booi, Head of Political Organising at Ndifuna Ukwazi
We call on every member of society to join us to ask Premier Alan Winde to acknowledge the long and painful history that followed the enactment of the Native Land Act. We are calling on him to renew his commitment to addressing the remnants of that history, which continues to influence the lives of many people of colour who are languishing in poverty on the peripheries. We are calling on Premier Alan Winde to release the Tafelberg site, which offers an opportunity to bring communities together to start mending the deep divides in our city. Our appeal is driven by a deep commitment to spatial justice and the need for social integration in Cape Town. We call on Premier Alan Winde to release the Tafelberg site to mend these divides of our history.
NU is currently awaiting the Constitutional Court’s directions regarding the application for leave to appeal. Meanwhile, the struggle to use the Tafelberg site for social housing, reflecting a broader commitment to achieving spatial justice and equity in urban land distribution, continues.
Learn More
- SCA rule in favour of WCG, overturns judgement on Tafelberg site
- Reclaim the City leaders ask Premier why affordable housing on Tafelberg development site hasn’t happened yet
- Premiere Winde Whitewashes Tafelberg Site
- S2 Poli-Tricks Ep1: R5m spent to defend social housing on Tafelberg site by WCG: Premier Alan Winde
