Morero, Brink due in court over informal settlement evictions

Staff Reporter

Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero and City Manager Floyd Brink must appear in court on Tuesday to explain why the city has not provided emergency housing for over 74 “vulnerable” families facing eviction.

The order, according to a statement issued by the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI), follows a 31 March high court order in the matter of Occupiers of Erf 74, Electron Township v K2012150042 & City of Johannesburg Municipality.

SERI is representing families from the Electrons informal settlement in Unigray.

It said the court ordered Morero and Brink to personally account for what the city has done, or is doing, to provide Temporary Emergency Accommodation, or TEA, and to state where the occupiers will be relocated and how.

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The 31 March order was granted after the city failed to comply with an order issued on 26 November 2025.  In that order, it was told to provide TEA for the occupiers.

The families are also seeking to compel senior city officials to account for non-compliance with five earlier court orders.

“This pattern of defiance, particularly towards the law, poses a serious threat to our constitutional democracy, the City and its office bearers need to do better,” SERI litigation director Nkosinathi Sithole said.

This is not a new fight. In the landmark 2011 Blue Moonlight judgment, the constitutional court held that the city had a constitutional obligation to provide temporary accommodation to occupiers who would otherwise be rendered homeless. It rejected the city’s argument that it lacked the resources to do so.

That obligation has repeatedly resurfaced in later litigation. In a March 2025 damages ruling against Johannesburg, the Gauteng High Court found the city had failed for three years to comply with an