Human rights need to come first in evictions
JOBURG - A BAG filled with someone’s belongings is thrown to the ground. A child crouches near furniture that used to decorate a flat. A woman is manhandled out of a building she used to call home.
For journalists at the scene, this is another story of a mass eviction; more unpaid rent bills, more landlords reclaiming hijacked buildings. The photographs capture the sternness of the people carrying out the evictions – and the sadness and bewilderment of those being evicted.
From journalists’ footage of eviction scenes, it would seem the process lacks the consideration of the human element – that the evictees are people who are losing their homes and the thrown out objects are their treasured belongings.
However, it is also easy to forget that those employed to evict residents are people too, as are the landlords who are trying to salvage what is theirs, making the issue a complicated one. One can see the need for a system in which the courts order evictions after other channels have failed; one can comprehend the frustration of landlords who wish to reclaim their buildings; one can understand the struggle of the people doing the evicting; and one can empathise with those who lose their homes.
And while the process serves to uphold the law, when it comes to how the evictions are carried out perhaps the idiom, ‘It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it’ should be borne in mind ensuring the human rights of evictees are safeguarded.
It is an issue Gauteng Human Settlements MEC, Jacob Mamabolo, is reportedly raising, as he is taking a test case to court for the interpretation of the law to be clarified in a bid to protect the rights of those being evicted, especially the rights of women, children and people with disabilities.
This is not the first time Mamabolo has questioned how evictions are executed. In July last year, he signed a memorandum of understanding with an evicting company to give 48-hours notice and an assessment of the validity of court orders, before tenants could be evicted.
It will be interesting to see how the law will be clarified.
While evictions are sometimes necessary, and a certain amount of force and ability to meet confrontation head-on is needed, surely respect for human rights should define the way in which evictions are carried out in a fair and transparent system?
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