Riyaz Patel
The Western Cape High Court has found South Africa’s former Land Reform Minister in contempt of court for not drafting up a comprehensive plan to return former residents to the historic neighbourhood of District Six.
Acting judge president of the Land Claims Court, Yasmin Meer, said Maite Nkoana-Mashabane had been “grossly unreasonable” in discharging her duties.
The department, currently headed by new minister Thoko Didiza, was found to have failed to comply with the order, but the personal costs order was issued on Nkoana-Mashabane, who was minister at the time of the complaint.
Nkoana-Mashabane is now Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and People with Disabilities.
She was ordered to pay the costs of counsel from April 17 from her own pocket.
Nkoana-Mashabane and her department were hauled to court by District Six land claimants after they missed a February court deadline to compile a comprehensive plan to redevelop the area.
Jubilant residents broke out into song on the steps on the High Court.
District Six lives again!
| District Six: On February 11, 1966, the apartheid government declared Cape Town’s District Six a whites-only area under the Group Areas Act of 1950. From 1968, over 60 000 of its inhabitants were forcibly removed to the Cape Flats, over twenty five kilometers away. Buildings were systematically bulldozed throughout the 70s, and by 1982, almost all evidence of the once vibrant district had been destroyed. |
The District Six Museum was established in 1994.
It provides both a tangible space for bringing life to a community lost to the ruthlessness of apartheid, as well as providing a platform for social justice.
Through educational programmes, collections and exhibitions, the District Six Museum provides a voice for the stories of those displaced and dispossessed by apartheid-era forced removals.
