Models For the Jurisdictional Treatment of Urban Land Conflicts

A Study Applied to South African Legislation and Constitutional Case Law

Abstract

This article analyzes models for the jurisdictional treatment of urban land conflicts in South African legislation and constitutional case law. It examines the Law-Centered Model (or PISA Model), grounded in the 1951 Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act enacted during apartheid, characterized by the non-recognition of the right to housing, the hierarchization of procedural subjects, the presumed self-evidence of eviction claims, and the belief in eviction as a simple and preferred solution to the land conflict. In contrast, it investigates the Constitution-Centered Model, established by the 1996 Constitution and consolidated by the 1998 Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act (PIE), grounded in the requirement of a judicial order for eviction and in the complexification of the decision-making methodology, which demands judgments of justice and equity informed by relevant circumstances such as personal vulnerabilities, duration of occupation, eviction impacts, and the availability of suitable alternative accommodation. The contribution of the South African Constitutional Court is examined, especially in the Grootboom, Jaftha, and PE Municipality cases, regarding the interpretation of article 26 of the Constitution and the consolidation of a paradigm of protection against arbitrary evictions, offering conceptual references for analyzing analogous conflicts in the Global South, without thereby amounting to a microcomparative study of such systems.