The Slums Act was a highly controversial Act supported by the Provincial Government of KwaZulu-Natal as a response to housing conditions. Its stated purpose was to eliminate substandard housing conditions by giving the provincial Housing MEC authority to prescribe a time in which it would be compulsory for municipalities to evict unlawful occupiers of slums when landowners failed to do so. It also forced private landowners to evict shack dwellers. It was meant to be replicated in all other South African provinces. The Act was widely criticised by civil society organisations and academics who said it was in conflict with the South African Constitution and PIE Act and who considered it to be repressive and anti-poor legislation.
The squatters' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo took the government to court to have the Act declared unconstitutional. It lost in the KwaZulu-Natal High Court, Durban but then appealed directly to the Constitutional Court. Abahlali baseMjondolo argued that the province was mandated to deal with housing rather than land tenure and that the act dealt with evictions and slum eradication rather than the provision of housing. They also argued that the act was vague and gave too much power to the provincial government that was in conflict with section 26 of the constitution that deals with housing and eviction rights.
The Act judged unconstitutional
On 14 October 2009, the South African Constitutional Court found the law to be in conflict with the Constitution and struck it down. Costs were awarded to Abahlali baseMjondolo. According to the judgement, the legislation would have allowed for the possibility of mass evictions without the possibility of suitable alternative accommodation and would have therefore violated the Prevention of Illegal Evictions Act and South Africa's Constitution.
Intimidation and violence following the judgment
It was reported that following the judgment members of the movement were publicly threatened for their comments criticising the Slums Act. It has also been argued that the judgment was a key factor in the armed attack on Abahlali baseMjondolo in the Kennedy Roadshack settlement in Durbanin September 2009.
Significance of the judgment
The Slums Act is one of the best known judgments by the Constitutional Court in South Africa. It has been argued that after the judgment the state abandoned its plans to eradicate shack settlements by 2014.
