- The High Court granted leave to appeal an eviction order affecting 466 residents of the Struben Street homeless shelter. This means the eviction is suspended until the appeal is decided.
- Judge A Millar criticised Lawyers for Human Rights for what he described as opportunistic conduct, but said broader concerns about fairness justify the Supreme Court of Appeal hearing.
- The court emphasised the growing homelessness crisis and the need for guidance on how lower courts should handle large-scale shelter evictions.
The residents living at the City of Tshwane’s No 2 Struben Street shelter will remain for now, after the High Court in Pretoria granted leave to appeal the eviction order against them. This automatically suspends the eviction, pending a decision by the Supreme Court of Appeal.
The case concerns 466 people living at the No 2 Struben Street Homeless Shelter, as well as others described as unlawfully occupying the same premises, represented by Lawyers for Human Rights. The respondent in the case is the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality.
Judge A Millar was asked to determine whether leave to appeal should be granted against an eviction order issued on 14 November 2025. That order authorised the removal of 466 people from the municipal shelter.
According to the Superior Courts Act, once leave to appeal is granted, the execution of the order is suspended unless a court decides otherwise. There is no indication that the City has tried to enforce the eviction while the appeal is pending. As a result, the residents will remain at the shelter until the Supreme Court of Appeal makes a decision.
Background to the eviction
When the eviction application was previously heard, about 30 of the 466 affected people were present in court, and none of them had legal representation. Lawyers for Human Rights, who had previously represented all 466 residents, had withdrawn from the case months earlier and did not take part when a rule nisi was issued calling on the affected people to show why they should not be evicted.
Judge Millar noted that less than 10 percent of the affected people were present in court. Those who attended did not object to the eviction itself, but were worried about what would happen to them afterwards.
The court tried to structure its order to address relocation and minimise the risk of further homelessness. Judge Millar stated that he believed the order as a whole considered the rights of all affected people and included safeguards to make sure that, once evicted from No 2 Struben Street, their situation would not be worsened.
The appeal was based on the argument that the court had failed to consider its constitutional obligations and relevant legal precedents, around providing suitable and available emergency accommodation when an eviction might lead to homelessness.
However, Judge Millar made it clear that he did not believe another court would decide differently. In his view, "no other court would have come to a different conclusion, and the application would have been dismissed."
Criticism and compelling reason
The judgment includes strong criticism of Lawyers for Human Rights. Judge Millar noted that they were "nowhere to be seen" when the matter was called, but after the eviction order was granted, "they placed themselves on record again and now sought to challenge the process that had occurred in their absence."
He called this "opportunistic conduct" and said that, if there had not been a compelling reason, he would have dismissed the application and ordered punitive costs against them.
The compelling reason was the fractured way that the residents were represented. After rejoining the case, Lawyers for Human Rights filed what they called a Community Resolution, signed by only 248 of the 466 people. This meant 218 people had no representation in the appeal proceedings.
Judge Millar explained that if leave to appeal were refused, just over half of the affected people would have no further legal options. Meanwhile, others who had not attended court or been represented by Lawyers for Human Rights could still try to overturn the eviction order, creating a risk of unequal outcomes for people in the same position.
He therefore found that there was "some other compelling reason why the appeal should be heard."
Importantly, the court placed the case in a broader social context. Judge Millar wrote: "Given the plight of the homeless and the increasing numbers of the homeless, it is necessary for a higher court to consider this situation and give guidance to lower courts."
Leave to appeal the eviction order was therefore granted to the Supreme Court of Appeal. The costs of the condonation application and the application for leave to appeal will be decided as part of the appeal.
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