August 17, 2004
By Lucky Sindane
IF they stick to their guns, the new Municipal Court magistrates will have no mercy when imposing sentences on those who violate the City's by-laws.
This was the clear message given during a tour around the city on Monday, 16 August, by three City magistrates, the City's director of legal services and representatives from the Johannesburg Metro Police Department - ahead of the launch of the Municipal Court later this month.
The Municipal Court will be based in the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court building and will deal initially with municipal offences in the inner city, including the violation of by-laws regulating activities such as street trading, noise control and vandalism.
"The main objective of this tour is to show the magistrates how the City's by-laws are being violated and they should take these cases very seriously," said Johannesburg's director of legal services, Karen Brits.
The first stop of the tour was a dark building on the corner of Main and Kruis Streets, which houses about 100 people.
Here people had moved into the building illegally - with blocked sewers and non-functioning toilets. Some members of the tour group were not keen to enter the building because the smell was so bad. Boxes divided the rooms and an operational heater, amongst many other appliances connected illegally to an electricity supply, presented a potential fire hazard.
According to Alan Wheeler, head of law enforcement in Johannesburg's planning department: "The area around the building has the highest crime rate in South Africa."
However, one block away the story was very different. Gandhi Square is a well-managed area with visible security guards on patrol, and no street traders.
Next stop was Noord Street, near the taxi rank. Here there were a large number of street traders, drawn by the taxi rank. However, the area in which they have set up stalls is not a designated trading area and the pavement and streets around them were thick with litter. Small entrepreneurs have also set up panel-beating business on the street around the corner from a local spares shop.
"This is really causing problems for the community; the sidewalks are occupied by people who sell their goods. We are doing something about it because there are designated areas for selling," said Wheeler.
Quartz Street in Hillbrow smells like a brewery. A man who refused to give his name sells his home-made sorghum beer from his pavement stall for R1 a glass. Several of his customers were sitting around, relaxing with their drinks.
Another of the problems highlighted during the inner-city tour was that of street children and a growing number of illegal immigrants.
"We've been living here for the past six years and we are going nowhere," said Pule and Joseph, two of the street children who live on Quartz Street. "We are working for the illegal immigrants and we are making money," they said.
"This is where the illegal immigrants do their business. We have cleared a few buildings which were occupied by them - like the Mimosa building," said Wheeler.
In a building in Kapteijn Street, Hillbrow, a door to a grimy fridge was opened to reveal hundreds of frozen chickens ready for sale. Though the owner of the fridge looked unconcerned about the discovery, Wheeler said that in the past chickens from a street trader had been tested and found to carry some type of disease.
"In this case inspectors might come to inspect the place. They'll ask for his identity document and might find he doesn't have one and that's a big problem for us," said Wheeler.
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