LITIGATING SOCIO-ECONOMIC RIGHTS IN SOUTH AFRICA - PULP

210 Chapter 6
further enabled the Court to continue to engage in dialogue with the
state as regards the mechanisms of policy implementation. 211 There
is no better way than this approach in which the court could have
engaged the government in a constitutional dialogue. Indeed, the
courts can only engage in dialogue between themselves and the other
organs of state in litigation before them. Once the litigation is closed,
the dialogue is also automatically closed.
Dialogue between the government and the courts is justified,
among others, by the fact that not so many cases have been filed
before the Constitutional Court since the Constitution was adopted. It
is therefore important that the Court takes full advantage of those
cases before it to engage in full dialogue with the other organs of
state. This can only be done effectively if supervisory jurisdiction is
retained. Another opportunity to engage in such dialogue may arise
only after a considerably long time. It is, for instance, over eight years
since the TAC case was heard. Yet, in spite of the contentions
surrounding the problem of HIV/AIDS and the response of the
government towards the same, the Court has not had another
opportunity to engage in dialogue on this problem.
The Olivia case — A big stride forward
The recent case of Occupiers of 15 Olivia Road and Others v City of
Johannesburg and Others (Olivia case) 212 has highlighted the benefits
which the Constitutional Court could derive from granting structural
interdicts in socio-economic rights cases. This case was instituted in
the High Court at Johannesburg by more than 400 occupiers of two
‘bad’ buildings in Johannesburg to resist their eviction, which was
scheduled to take place in pursuit of the City of Johannesburg’s
regeneration program. The regeneration programme was intended to
revamp the city by, amongst others, rehabilitating all bad buildings.
The High Court had held that the City’s programme fell short of the
requirement to provide suitable relief for the people in the city who
were in a crisis or in desperate need of housing. The Court interdicted
the eviction. On appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal, 213 the Court
found the buildings to be unsafe and authorised the eviction of the
211 Davis (n 3 above) 312.
212
Case CCT 24/07 [2008] ZACC 1. For a discussion of the history of this case, see L
Chenwi & SLiebenberg ‘The constitutional protection of those facing eviction
from bad buildings’ (2008) 9(1) ESR Review 12.
213
See City of Johannesburg v Rand Properties (Pty) Ltd and Others 2007 6 SA 417;
2007 (6) BCLR 643. For a discussion of this case, see G Quinot ‘An administrative
law perspective on “bad buildings” evictions in Johannesburg inner city’ (2007)
8(1) ESR Review 25; and C Mbazira ‘An overview of the Constitutional Court
hearing of the inner-city evictions case’ (2007) 8(3) ESR Review 12.