World Cities Day — Holding the line on eviction protections for the vulnerable

Recent weeks have seen intensified protests in several European cities. 

One of the key areas of contention has been a lack of affordable housing and protections for the poor. These vulnerabilities were highlighted by the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal in Madrid from the home that she had lived in for more than 70 years. Her eviction and tragic death sparked protests across Spain. 

After we marked World Cities Day on 31 October, it is timeous to reflect on an emerging threat to eviction protections for the poor in South Africa – the proposed amendments to the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act (the PIE Act). 

The Amendment Bill is currently making its way to Parliament following a public consultation process by the Department of Human Settlements. In its current form, the PIE Act speaks directly to protections against unlawful evictions in urban contexts and what happens to people who have nowhere else to go. However, the protections offered by the Constitution and three decades of case law are now at risk of being eroded.

What the law protects today

Section 26(3) of the Constitution states that no one may be evicted from their home without a court order. The PIE Act, passed in 1998, puts this into practice. 

Before a court orders an eviction, it must consider everyone’s circumstances, including the needs of vulnerable groups such as minor children, female-headed households as well as any elderly or disabled persons. If an eviction leads to homelessness, the state has an obligation to provide temporary emergency accommodation so that no one is left homeless following an eviction. 

Such protections have enabled the country to move away from the mass, court-approved homelessness of the apartheid years. The act balances the interests of both property owners and occupiers through consideration of whether an eviction would be “just and equitable”.

What the Bill would change

Among the many changes proposed, two stand out as particularly harmful. The first imposes a time limit on how long individuals can stay in temporary emergency accommodation and wants the court to determine the length of stay. In practice, temporary accommodation does often become permanent as people have nowhere else to go and the state has not provided affordable options. 

Without an alternative, a court-imposed deadline on temporary emergency accommodation will in practice just defer an eviction into homelessness to a future date.

Another amendment to the Act proposes the creation of new crimes. Inciting, arranging, organising or permitting a land occupation would carry a fine of up to R2-million or two years in prison. Syndicates that profit from occupations are already breaking the law under section 3 of the PIE Act, which makes it a criminal offence to receive or solicit payment for arranging or permitting someone to occupy land without the owner’s consent. 

The government therefore already has the powers it needs to act against those who exploit occupiers. Several organisations and movements, such as the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (Seri), Ndifuna Ukwazi and Abahlali baseMjondolo have warned about the wide net of criminalisation that this proposed amendment casts – it would, for example, criminalise people acting in good faith, such as a community leader helping families after a fire; or neighbours pooling money for electricity.

What proponents of the Bill wrongly argue

Money and administrative burdens as excuses: In its media statement on the bill the Department of Human Settlements argues that unlawful occupations place a “significant financial and administrative burden” on the government, and the Bill’s own memorandum states that it aims to relieve municipalities of the “huge financial burden” of providing alternative accommodation. 

However, the Constitutional Court as far back as 2011 addressed these questions in the Blue Moonlight case when the City of Johannesburg argued that it could not afford to provide temporary emergency accommodation for people facing eviction, but the court held that the state must plan and budget for such circumstances. 

More recently, the Khampepe Commission of Inquiry into the Usindiso Building fire made similar recommendations for the City to review its budgets for temporary emergency accommodation and affordable social housing to ensure that resources are directed toward durable, long-term solutions. 

Mistaking ‘hijacking’ not poverty as the main problem: The Bill focuses on “syndicates” and bad actors. A pervasive narrative about the Johannesburg inner city has been that criminals “hijack” buildings, and that the answer is tougher action against the people living in them. 

Again, this version was dispelled by the Khampepe Commission of Inquiry that found that only 5.74% of the 110 properties it inspected had allegations of rent being collected by someone who was not the owner. Many buildings were occupied by people “driven by dire poverty”. In fact, it discouraged the City and its political leaders from using the word “hijacked” at all, calling it “pejorative”.

The importance of not moving backwards

The courts have been clear that once human rights protections have been put in place, they shouldn’t be rolled back or weakened by the government. This is referred to as the principle of non-retrogression. 

The Constitutional Court applied this principle in July 2026, in the Tafelberg case. The case was brought by Ndifuna Ukwazi and Reclaim the City in relation to the Western Cape government’s plan to sell public land in Sea Point, which the national government had wanted to use for social housing. 

The court held that the province and the City of Cape Town “are bound by the doctrine of non-retrogression”. The court also ordered the province and the City to report to the high court on their housing plans. The province accepted that no affordable housing project has been completed in the Cape Town CBD since 2017, and the City pointed to “enormous budgetary constraints”. 

Although resource constraints are of course a limitation, the court had inquired into the plans made, not directed that there be less protection for those affected.

If the same principle is applied to the proposed PIE Amendment Bill, then a limitation on the provision of temporary emergency accommodation takes away part of a protection that has stood for almost 30 years, and the new crimes make it risky to stand with people facing eviction. The government must justify both. 

So far, its main answer is cost, and the courts have already said that is not enough.

What should Parliament do?

The Bill is not yet law, and MPs should do four things. First, ask the department to justify putting a time limit on temporary emergency accommodation. Second, remove or narrow the new crimes so they will not affect community leaders and ordinary residents. Third, ask how the public’s comments are reflected in the version before them. 

Last, ask the national, provincial and local governments to work together to fund temporary emergency accommodation properly and to carry out the Khampepe Commission’s recommendations. DM