Contested spaces: Housing rights and evictions law in post-apartheid South Africa

Abstract

The 1996 South African Constitution is renowned for entrenching a broad range of judicially enforceable socio-economic rights, including the right of everyone to have access to adequate housing and to be protected from arbitrary evictions in section 26. Although the South African Constitutional Court has issued a number of landmark housing rights decisions in recent years, an emphasis on spatial justice remains elusive in the jurisprudence and academic literature on section 26. This is despite the fact that spatial inequality continues to hold profound implications for South Africa’s urban poor. This article analyses the section 26 jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court in the context of the eviction of poor people from their homes in heavily populated urban areas to evaluate to what extent it contributes to the transformation of South Africa’s urban housing landscape by challenging spatial inequality and promoting integrated housing development. The evaluation of the jurisprudence suggests that addressing the spatial consequences of evictions and promoting integrated urban communities remains unfinished business for the development of evictions law in post-apartheid South Africa.