Green lights everywhere for City of Cape Town in its legal fights over roads
The City of Cape Town was on a winning streak in the courts this week.
A full bench of the High Court in Cape Town ruled in favour of the city on Friday in an appeal brought by residents of Wynberg and Plumstead in a bid to stop the demolition of their homes to make way for MyCiTi bus service infrastructure.
The litigants‚ known as the South Road Families Association‚ are 21 tenants living in council-owned homes on South Road in Wynberg and Waterbury Road in Plumstead.
Litigation ensued in 2015 when the residents accused the city of not following a proper public participation process. The court found that the city had‚ indeed‚ followed the right procedure.
Meanwhile‚ the South African National Roads Agency’s application for leave to appeal against a judgment preventing the tolling of sections of the N1 and N2 in Cape Town was dismissed by the Constitutional Court on Wednesday. Sanral was also ordered to pay the legal costs.
“The Constitutional Court has considered this application for leave to appeal‚” the judgment reads. “It has concluded that the application should be dismissed as it bears no prospects of success.”
Brett Herron‚ the mayoral committee member responsible for transport‚ welcomed the High Court ruling. He accused the ANC of misleading the South Road litigants for political gain.
“The court action was a waste of our ratepayers’ money and will unfairly and unnecessarily delay the much-needed rollout of the MyCiTi service to the residents of Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha by nearly two years‚” Herron said.
“These tenants were used by the ANC‚ who were pursuing their own narrow political interests in the run-up to the local government elections.”
Yonela Diko‚ spokesman for the ANC in the Western Cape‚ scoffed at Herron’s accusation.
“The ANC has never been party to this application‚ neither as respondent or appellant‚” he said. “We therefore reprimand Councillor Brett Herron for foolishly drawing a straight line between ANC supporting a just cause of families uprooted from their homes apartheid-style to effectively saying ANC is using the families for political gamesmanship.
“Helping our communities is why we are in politics‚ and once we become cynical about giving such help‚ then we will have ruined and divided our communities the way the DA has done in this city.
“We have been concerned that all the projects by the City of Cape Town always seek to destabilise the lives of the poor and we are yet to see any road project that requires the rich to relocate for the bigger benefit of the entire community.”
— TMG Digital