IRENE Grootboom’s death while living in a shack has once again highlighted the government’s bureaucratic shortfalls.
She is hailed as the person who won one of the biggest victories for the constitutional right of access to adequate housing — only to die on Monday, still living in a shack.
When she approached the Constitutional Court in 2000, Grootboom had been on the waiting list for low-cost housing for seven years. When she died, she was still waiting.
The judgment in Grootboom’s case is regarded worldwide as a big step forward for socioeconomic rights . But it has also been criticised for its rejection of the idea that socio-economic rights be interpreted to impose an obligation on the state to ensure minimum essential levels of each of the rights, and for not providing a more rigorous remedy.
Sandra Liebenberg, Professor of Human Rights Law at Stellenbosch University , says it would be “unfair to lay the blame (for Grootboom having died in a shack) entirely at the door of the Constitutional Court”.
Before the case came before the Constitutional Court, Grootboom’s immediate needs had been settled by an agreement between the community and the municipality in Western Cape. It should be remembered that Grootboom never went to court seeking a house, but some form of emergency housing, Liebenberg says.
When the case first went to court, Grootboom literally had nowhere to go. Her community had moved from one informal settlement, in Wallacedene, and illegally set up in another. The land was privately owned and the owner evicted them , but they could not go back to their previous area as others had moved in there.
What Grootboom wanted was a solution for an immediate and urgent problem — this she received, although she and others clearly envisaged that they would be integrated in the broader housing programme for Wallacedene in the medium term.
That this did not happen “raises serious questions about the ability of the government’s housing programme to facilitate the realisation of the right of access to adequate housing,” Liebenberg says.
In his judgment, Justice Zak Yacoob said what the constitutional right required was a “coherent public housing programme directed towards the progressive realisation of the right of access to adequate housing within the state’s available means”.
Yacoob said the government’s long and medium term plans to bring housing to the homeless was a “major achievement”. But that for the programme to be reasonable, it had to provide for “those in desperate need”. This was where the state fell short.
- Business Day - News Worth Knowing
She is hailed as the person who won one of the biggest victories for the constitutional right of access to adequate housing — only to die on Monday, still living in a shack.
When she approached the Constitutional Court in 2000, Grootboom had been on the waiting list for low-cost housing for seven years. When she died, she was still waiting.
The judgment in Grootboom’s case is regarded worldwide as a big step forward for socioeconomic rights . But it has also been criticised for its rejection of the idea that socio-economic rights be interpreted to impose an obligation on the state to ensure minimum essential levels of each of the rights, and for not providing a more rigorous remedy.
Sandra Liebenberg, Professor of Human Rights Law at Stellenbosch University , says it would be “unfair to lay the blame (for Grootboom having died in a shack) entirely at the door of the Constitutional Court”.
Before the case came before the Constitutional Court, Grootboom’s immediate needs had been settled by an agreement between the community and the municipality in Western Cape. It should be remembered that Grootboom never went to court seeking a house, but some form of emergency housing, Liebenberg says.
When the case first went to court, Grootboom literally had nowhere to go. Her community had moved from one informal settlement, in Wallacedene, and illegally set up in another. The land was privately owned and the owner evicted them , but they could not go back to their previous area as others had moved in there.
What Grootboom wanted was a solution for an immediate and urgent problem — this she received, although she and others clearly envisaged that they would be integrated in the broader housing programme for Wallacedene in the medium term.
That this did not happen “raises serious questions about the ability of the government’s housing programme to facilitate the realisation of the right of access to adequate housing,” Liebenberg says.
In his judgment, Justice Zak Yacoob said what the constitutional right required was a “coherent public housing programme directed towards the progressive realisation of the right of access to adequate housing within the state’s available means”.
Yacoob said the government’s long and medium term plans to bring housing to the homeless was a “major achievement”. But that for the programme to be reasonable, it had to provide for “those in desperate need”. This was where the state fell short.
- Business Day - News Worth Knowing
No comments:
Post a Comment