South Africa: By-Law Relating To Streets and Public Places

BY-LAW RELATING TO STREETS, PUBLIC PLACES AND THE PREVENTION OF NUISANCES

Submission by the Cape Town Anti-War Coalition Community House, 41 Salt River Road, Salt River, Cape Town Tel: 082 2020617 The Cape Town Anti-War Coalition is an umbrella organisation born in 2002.

We work closely with many of Cape Town's Social Movements, such as the Mandela Park Anti-Eviction Campaign, Gympie Street Residents Committee, Ogoni Peoples Solidarity Forum, Site C Youth With Vision, Newfields Village Housing Association, Vrygrond Action Committee and others. Because we view war very broadly, and due to the nature of community struggles in the City around access to decent housing and basic services, much of our work is taken up with supporting local struggles and being part of mobilisations. OBJECTION TO CLAUSE 11 (2 - 5)
Clause 11 (2 - 5) states:

"Subject to the Regulation of Gatherings Act, 1993 (Act No. 205 of 1993), no person shall (a) hold, organise, initiate, control or actively participate in a procession, demonstration or gathering in a public place; (2) Any person who intends to perform or carry out any one or more of the actions described in subsection (1) in any public place shall submit a written application for permission thereto, which shall reach the City at least thirty days before the date upon which any one or more of such actions is or are intended to be performed or carried out; provided that persons who intend participating actively in a procession, demonstration or gathering in any public place need not apply to the City for permission thereto and that it shall not be illegal for such persons to participate actively in such procession, demonstration or gathering if the organiser, promoter or controller thereof has obtained the permission of the City. An application made in terms hereof shall contain the following: (a) full details of the name, address and occupation of the applicant; (b) full details of the public place where or route along which any one or more of the actions prescribed in subsection (1) is or are intended to be performed or carried out, proposed starting and finishing times or any one or more of the aforesaid actions and, in the case of processions, demonstrations and gatherings, the number of persons expected to attend; and (c) general details of the purpose of any one or more of the aforesaid actions intended to be performed or carried out.

(3) Any application submitted in accordance with subsection (2) shall be considered by the City, and if any one or more of the actions to be performed or carried out as proposed in such application is or are not, in the opinion of the City, likely to be in conflict with the interests of public peace, good order or safety, the City, shall issue a certificate granting permission and authorisation for the performance or carrying out of any one or more of such actions, subject to such conditions as the City may deem necessary to uphold public peace, good order and safety. (4) The City may refuse to grant permission for the performance or carrying out of any one or more of the actions described in subsection (1), if the performance or carrying out of such action or actions will, in the opinion of the City, be in conflict with the interests of public peace, good order or safety. (5) The City may withdraw any permission granted in terms of subsection (3), if, as a result of further information, it is of the opinion that the performance or carrying out of the action or actions in question will be in conflict with the interests of public peace, good order or safety. It is the Cape Town Anti-War Coalition's contention that these draconian provisions severely limit our constitutional rights to freedom of expression.
In addition, these provisions are thoroughly unworkable. Mobilisation around urgent issues often happens at very short notice, with communities needing to arrange protests within 24 hours on issues related to them being issued with eviction orders, or their water being cut off.

This is in the very nature of the urgent protest action allowed for in our Constitution. The Cape Town Anti-War Coalition also notes that this year, we have held about five peaceful protests in the City Centre, none of which were planned more than two weeks in advance. This was due to the urgent nature of the issue: a demand for Home Affairs to provide information on the illegally renditioned Pakistani national Khalid Rashid, a protest against the AAD Weapons Expo, and a protest outside Parliament against the massacres in the Gaza Strip. We note that the City has traditionally granted permission for marches even on 24 hours notice and has engaged with organisers around marshalling and crowd control. However, lately, a number of applications for march permits have been turned down. The Cape Town Anti-War Coalition views this as an unconstitutional implementation of the as yet un-enacted By-Law and urges the City to cease and desist from this approach. The Cape Town Anti-War Coalition hereby thoroughly objects to Clause 11 (2 - 5) and calls for it to be removed.

CLAUSE 2: PROHIBITED BEHAVIOUR Many members of the working class and poor communities we work with are formerly employed permanent workers who lost their jobs since the manufacturing, textile and other Western Cape industries began shedding jobs rapidly a few years ago. These workers were already impoverished by the many years of working for extremely low wages under apartheid. They are now unemployed and destitute, or mostly employed in informal, unregulated trading in various parts of the city. Due to the number of times that members of these communities have applied for jobs and not been successful, it is clear that work in the informal sector is the only way for many thousands of members of Cape Town's working class and poor communities to earn any kind of income, even though this is usually a poverty wage.

With this in mind, the Cape Town Anti-War Coalition calls for the complete deletion of Clause 2: Prohibited Behaviour. Most of the "behaviour" that is prohibited and deemed by City decision makers to be "a nuisance" (living outdoors, making fires to keep warm, washing persons and clothing at public taps, car guarding, roadside mechanics, hawking in non-designated areas, sex work) is in fact not "nuisance behaviour" at all but a desperate attempt by poor and working class people to survive, in the context of them living in a City which has failed consistently to implement any measures to create jobs and housing and deliver basic services.

The Cape Town Anti-War Coalition notes that the City has made much in the media of the fact that it intends to house homeless people in shelters, and "rehabilitate" jobless people who take the initiative to work outdoors, such measures are not contained anywhere in the By-Law itself, which instead sets out a system of heavy fines, unaffordable for unemployed and homeless people and casual workers. We object to the City's dishonesty around these issues. We further object to the notion that the poor and working class need to be rehabilitated and split up as families, and forced into single gender, overcrowded homeless shelters. The City has a duty to work with other spheres of government to ensure decent family housing is delivered to the poor. It is not only the rich who need to live in normal houses. It is our contention that ample evidence exists to support the claim that the City has abysmally failed to work on housing delivery, and is instead promoting gentrification of poor areas and million rand property developments which render even more people homeless than ever before.

The promotion of gentrification, for example of Woodstock, has been speeded up by the current City Administration and the current Councillor in the area who both propose to house evicted, poor Woodstock residents in a remote area somewhere between Mfuleni and Blackheath where they will not be able to access schools and hospitals, or afford to travel to their low paid jobs in the Woodstock areas. This pattern is seen in many other Cape Town communities. The City's current policies are in fact contributing greatly to the impoverishment of Cape Town residents, who the City then seeks to criminalise through draconian behaviour laws. The Cape Town Anti-War Coalition hereby thoroughly objects to Clause 2 and calls for it to be removed. We align ourselves with other organisations calling for the scrapping of Clause 2. The Cape Town Anti-War Coalition does not believe in criminalising the poor, and is prepared to take legal action against the City if it persists with these unconstitutional clauses in the By-Law. For more information contact the Cape Town Anti-War Coalition Co-ordinator on 082 2020617.