Four special courts were set up recently in Johannesburg to handle prosecutions of Indians, Coloureds and Africans who have been living 'illegally' in 'white' areas. A magistrate was recalled from retirement to help three other magistrates handle about 600 cases over a four month period.
The prosecutions began in the Johannesburg Magistrates Court on 2 March but 233 of the pending cases were postponed for six months to allow legal representatives appointed for the first time to investigate their clients' cases and prepare a defence.
Earlier a large number of those charged appeared in court to hear dates set for their prosecution but charges against about 125 were withdrawn because they had vacated their 'illegal' abodes.
The prosecutions are all being brought under the Group Areas Act, the apartheid statute that lays down where people of different colours may live and work. Several white people are also being charged with allowing "disqualified persons" to occupy premises under their control.
Many blacks, particularly better-off Indians and Coloureds, have been moving into flats and houses in 'white' areas because of the acute shortage of accommodation in their own specially-designated areas, which are also usually miles from the city centre where they work. Estimates of the housing shortage in Johannesburg range from 8,000 to 10,000 houses in Coloured areas and some 5,000 in Indian areas.
Landlords encouraged the moves to fill up empty houses and flats, because of the surplus of 'white' accommodation brought about by the economic depression. The fact that many of the black tenants are prepared to pay double rents to secure a house further encourages the landlords. The authorities turned a blind eye to the trend until white right-wing extremist groups such as the National Front and the Witkommando started to campaign against it.
The huge backlog of prosecutions had built up while two test cases were taken to the Appeal Court. Lawyers hired by Actstop, the campaign to stop the evictions, argued that the Group Areas Act was unconstitutional. They also argued that the tenants had the right to remain because of necessity – the lack of alternative accommodation. Both cases were rejected on appeal.
In July last year, Marais Steyn, then Minister of Community Development (now the South African Ambassador to Britain), made a number of controversial remarks about coloured people living in 'white' areas. He said that there would be "bloodshed" if national service-men returned to find coloured people living in the scarce accommodation in these areas. He also threatened that Coloureds and Indians living "illegally" in 'white' areas would be evicted with the full force of the state once the two Group Areas test cases before the Appeal Court had been disposed of.
The dismissal of the two Group Areas Act test cases by the Appeal Court on 30 September 1980 meant that some 550 black families in Johannesburg and 1,500 families elsewhere were liable for prosecution and imminent eviction.
Commenting on the Appeal Court ruling, Professor Johan van der Vyver, Professor of Law at the University of the Witwatersrand, said "the injustice is constituted by the inequality of the facilities provided for whites on the one hand, and Coloureds, Indians and blacks, on the other hand". The ruling "amounts to a finding by our highest court that the legislature of this country has sanctioned injustice by authorising unequal treatment by the law of the different population groups".
