Schubart tenants sue for R31m (IOL)

The Tshwane Metro Council and the police are facing a R30.8 million damages claim relating to the eviction of Schubart Park flats residents in November. Lawyers acting for the evicted families have issued the council a letter of demand in which they are claiming R100 000 each on behalf of 308 clients.

The amount of damages could increase, as it was made clear in the letter this week that the lawyers were also being instructed by other former residents. Lawyers Nathaniah Jacobs and Louise du Plessis said in the letter that all the former residents on whose behalf they were acting, with their families, had been “unlawfully evicted” from their homes in the Schubart Park complex.

This mass eviction, alleged to have taken place “in the absence of any legislative framework”, was carried out over several days by officials from the City of Tshwane in co-operation with the police, it was stated. This followed a service delivery protest by a small number of people on September 21. The council at the time declared the building to be unsafe and refused to allow the residents to return to their flats.

In an attempt to return, the residents turned to the Pretoria High Court with an urgent late-night application. But Judge Bill Prinsloo, after listening to experts testifying for the council, declared that the building was unsafe.

“To allow the people back would be to endanger their lives,” he said.

The lawyers said the residents had suffered general and specific damages through having to move out of the building. “They were rendered temporarily or permanently homeless and have suffered considerable indignity, anguish, vilification and unacceptable degrading treatment,” the lawyers said in the letter. They said the “chaotic manner in which the forced removal” was effected had caused each family loss of or damage to property.

Many of the residents had lost income because of the eviction, as it had been difficult for them to return to work under such circumstances. They are claiming R50 000 a family for general damages and R50 000 for specific damages.

Du Plessis told the Pretoria News the civil claim was justified in light of the hardships the residents suffered after their eviction. “If successful, this may create a precedent for cases such as this in future. I am not aware of any other case where people have been evicted and have launched a civil claim as a result.” Several of the people are living on the streets as they have nowhere else to go. One of them, a woman who was living on a pavement, died two weeks ago following a chest-related illness, Du Plessis said.

The 170 residents who were given alternative accommodation in two places in the city for three months, are continuing to live there, in spite of the council having said it would no longer pay for this accommodation. Du Plessis said they were waiting for the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein to give them the go-ahead to appeal against the high court decision that the residents could not move back into Schubart Park.

Judge Prinsloo refused the residents leave to appeal, saying he did not believe that another court would come to a different finding. In response, the lawyers filed a petition with the appeal court.

The lawyers have obtained structural engineers who have inspected the building. Du Plessis said these experts’ had found that the building was structurally sound, contrary to the claims of the council’s experts, who told the court that the building was on the verge of collapsing. - Pretoria News