‘Every extra day’ is irreparable harm: court orders Ekurhuleni to restore N12 residents

The City of Ekurhuleni must proceed with an order to temporarily restore hundreds of people to the N12 informal settlement in Benoni, despite the municipality’s attempts to challenge the ruling on appeal.

In a judgment on Monday, Johannesburg high court judge Stuart Wilson ordered that an interim order issued in June remain fully operational while the municipality pursues further legal challenges.

The order affects about 570 people and their families who were evicted from the Chief Albert Luthuli informal settlement during demolition operations in May without a court order.

In his June 12 order, Wilson interdicted the municipality and police from demolishing any structures at the settlement until the court has made a determination on an application seeking permanent protection against the residents’ removal without a court order.

He further ordered the municipality to provide temporary accommodation for the displaced residents.

In the present application, the South African Human Rights Commission and the residents sought execution of the interim order Wilson granted in June.

Wilson said ordinarily, the June 12 order being interim in nature, no application for interim execution would be required since interim orders with no final effect were not suspended by applications for leave to appeal against them.

However, the municipality contended that the interim order was final in effect and sought leave to appeal against it on that basis. On July 13, Wilson refused leave to appeal.

“The municipality has nevertheless renewed its application for leave to appeal in the Supreme Court of Appeal. There, the municipality contends both that the interim order is final in effect and that, even if it is not, the interests of justice favour the grant of leave to appeal,” Wilson said.

Wilson said on Monday that the interim order plainly has no final effect.

He said in his July judgment refusing leave to appeal, he stated that the interim order restored the occupiers to the property pending the final determination of their claim.

Wilson said there was some suggestion that the order directing the reconstruction of temporary dwellings for the occupiers was inherently final in nature, but that would entail the proposition that such dwellings could not simply be taken down if the application for final relief failed.

Wilson said the municipality identified no harm — irreparable or otherwise — from the execution of the interim order pending appeal.

The municipality also contended that the execution of the interim order “will create community unrest as undeserving individuals will be benefiting whereas they were not displaced from the N12 informal settlement”.

“As is clear from the papers and my judgment (in June), the list of people granted relief under the terms of the interim order was compiled by the first applicant, the Human Rights Commission, as it sought to assist those being evicted during the demolition operations carried out in May 2026.”

Wilson said there was no challenge to the list’s authenticity in June.

The judge said there was clearly irreparable harm to the occupiers if interim execution was not ordered.

“On the papers, they have been homeless since May. Every extra day that they must endure in that condition constitutes irreparable harm.”

He said the longer the interim order took to execute, the lower the number of former occupiers of the informal settlement who would benefit from the interim order was likely to be, as those left homeless by the municipality’s conduct scramble to find some other form of shelter — however inadequate or temporary that might be.”

Ekurhuleni was also ordered to pay the costs of the latest application, including the costs of two counsel.

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