http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5203399

Eviction law rendered ineffective
Concourt triumph for shack dwellers

October 15, 2009 Edition 1

Wendy Jasson da Costa

SHACK dwellers around the country have reason to celebrate after the Constitutional Court yesterday ruled that section 16 of the KwaZulu-Natal Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Act was invalid.

According to the Constitutional Court, section 16 gave the government the power to determine when the owner or person in charge of land or a building, which was illegally occupied, must evict the squatters.

So its perfectly fine for the police to shoot at the poor with rubber bullets, even when protests are entirely peaceful, except when the eyes of the (rich - and white?) world are watching....It is clear who really counts for Willies Mchunu. This is disgraceful.

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5148448

KZN police told to go easy on rubber bullets for crowd control

September 02, 2009 Edition 1

Wendy Jasson da Costa

KwaZulu-Natal police have been warned not to use rubber bullets indiscriminately as it might send the wrong message to the world before the soccer World Cup in South Africa next year.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=139&art_id=vn20080505054317360C671374

Provinces to follow KZN's pioneering example

May 05 2008 at 08:09AM

By Wendy Jasson da Costa

All provinces in the country are to formulate legislation equivalent to that of the KwaZulu-Natal Slums Act, prompting threats of widespread civil unrest from community organisations in the Western Cape and Gauteng.

The announcement by housing MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu comes even though KZN's "pioneering" legislation is the subject of a court challenge by shack dwellers under the umbrella of the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement which wants the legislation scrapped.

SA told get its housing in order

April 25 2007 at 04:43AM

By Wendy Jasson da Costa

South Africa is likely to receive a damning report from the United Nations's special rapporteur on adequate housing, Miloon Kothari, when he ends his tour of the country on Thursday.

On Tuesday Kothari said that although South Africa's legislation was good and the right to housing was recognised in the constitution, implementation was "very weak" and there was a lack of co-ordination between departments.

He described the situation as "a mixed result".

Kothari is investigating the state of housing in different countries, access to water and electricity, sanitation, land rights, forced evictions and displacement because of development and disasters.