Harassed hawkers 1, municipality 0
IOL In what can be hailed as a landmark judgment for hawkers – who are harassed by municipalities in spite of court orders preventing them from doing so – a judge has ordered that a mayor and her municipality pay hefty fines. The municipality also has to pay each hawker R500 in compensation.
The order was given last week by the Mafikeng High Court against the Rustenburg Local Municipality, its executive mayor Sophy Mashishi and municipal manager Segomotso Segotso. They were each fined R50 000 for contempt of court, but the fine was suspended. The court, however, ordered that each of the 23 hawkers must immediately be paid R500 to make up for the goods they lost when municipal officers, together with the metro police, raided them at the bus rank in town where they plied their trade on July 1.
All their goods – mostly perishables – were taken. While the hawkers wanted the court to order that their goods be returned, they acknowledged that it was impractical as it was mostly fresh fruit and vegetables. They instead opted to receive R500 each, which they said was the average value of the fresh goods taken from each of them. The hawkers have been embroiled in litigation with the municipality for several years. There are also various orders issued against the municipality ruling that it may not unlawfully confiscate the hawkers’ goods. Despite these orders, the hawkers were still being targeted, they said in papers before court.
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), which assisted the hawkers in their court case, said this was a costly and time-consuming exercise. Most of the time the hawkers opted to just cut their losses after a raid, LHR lawyer Louise du Plessis said. “I hope that this judgment would set a precedent for other municipalities that ignore court orders and raid hawkers to unlawfully take their goods,” she said. Du Plessis said LHR got inundated with calls from hawkers, including in Pretoria, complaining that their goods were unlawfully taken by municipal officers.
“With this court order munici-palities must think twice before they unlawfully raid hawkers.” This was a first in which a municipality had been ordered to directly pay hawkers compensation for their goods. Referring to the Rustenburg hawkers, Du Plessis said: “We agree there should be by-laws which regulate hawkers, but they must be fair and precise. They must know where they can trade. We say, sort out your by-laws and we will adhere tothem.”
Zelda Venter