The Constitutional Court will hear further arguments on November 20 on the fate of Gauteng’s shelters for people displaced by xenophobic violence, while the camps will remain open pending further interim orders by the court.
All the parties can continue working towards the final closure of the camps in the interim within the terms set out in an order in August, Chief Justice Pius Langa said on Tuesday.
More than 60 people were killed and at least 20 000 people were displaced in xenophobic violence in May. Many turned to shelters erected by the government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, with NGOs providing other services, like healthcare.
The Consortium for Migrants and Refugees (Cormsa) and foreign nationals Odinga Mamba, Vasco Mitabele, Kiza Issa and Davidzo Maduviko had unsuccessfully applied to the Pretoria High Court to prevent the closure of the shelters on the originally scheduled date of August 15.
Most foreigners have since left the shelters, but some still remain, claiming they either have nowhere to go or are too afraid to go back to their communities in case they get attacked again.
Cormsa made an eleventh-hour application to keep the camps open and the judges deliberated the matter on August 15, while refugees at the camps milled about waiting to hear whether they would have to pack up and leave.
They were given a reprieve and the court later confirmed an agreement that the camps would remain open until at least September 30 and that the government could consolidate and close shelters until then, in consultation with the refugees’ representatives.
They returned to court on Tuesday for argument, but the refugees’ lawyer, Andrew Breitenbach, said he was not ready to proceed because papers had been filed late and he did not have time to prepare argument on an answering affidavit that he received on Monday.
He had hoped for a postponement to Thursday, which led to the judges objecting to a perception that the Constitutional Court had a running roll where lawyers could set dates that suited them or their clients.
They said that while they were sensitive to the plight of people living in the shelters, they had other time-consuming judgements to prepare and they had worked late on Monday night preparing for Tuesday’s case.
They also noted that the applicants were adding new issues to their papers and that the court’s role was to hear the facts that were brought up in the Pretoria application.
Breitenbach said they just wanted an agreement on specifics and to make sure everybody understood all the points, some of which have been in dispute at meetings.
They also wanted agreement on which camps the Gauteng government is responsible for because there was uncertainty about who should be administering the Akasia, Malas and Stanza Bobape camps in the Tshwane area.
Last week, Gauteng government spokesperson Thabo Masebe said the consolidation of Gauteng camps had started.
The court focused mainly on a lengthy argument for why a postponement should be granted and not many facts about the camps emerged, except that conditions were ”dire” and that the Gauteng government was concerned about sending a message that foreigners were getting preferential treatment over South Africans in terms of housing and services.
There was also a concern about what would happen after September 30 if the case was postponed beyond that.
Government advocate Quintus Pelser said no one would be evicted until September 30 and if the need arose after that, it would be done in terms of the law.
The court did not say when it would make the interim orders. — Sapa