ConCourt to hear land case

Bloemfontein -

The Constitutional Court will hear an application on Thursday for leave to appeal by a group of land invaders facing eviction from privately owned land.

The invaders have turned to the Constitutional Court and are seeking an order requiring the city of Tshwane to provide them with alternative accommodation as a pre-condition to their eviction.

They also want the city to pay compensation to the land owners, Brookway Property, until they are relocated.

Brookway owns a portion of the occupied farm in Zandfontein. The company applied successfully in the High Court in Pretoria in 2010 for an eviction order against the 800 land invaders.

The court ordered the council to make alternative accommodation available before January 31, 2011. It also allowed Brookway to evict any occupiers remaining on its property on or after March 15, 2011.

Brookway have submitted that the city failed in its constitutional duty to provide alternative accommodation. This resulted in it being deprived of the use of its property.

The city did not seek leave to appeal against the decision of the high court and was not opposing the application by the invaders. The city submitted it was unfair to require municipalities to carry the entire cost of providing alternative accommodation for unlawful occupiers without provincial and national government help. - Sapa