Reclaiming Johannesburg: When Compassion Becomes Collusion

Johannesburg is a city on the brink — not of collapse, but of recovery. And the greatest threat to that recovery is not only crime, nor filth, nor the hijacked buildings that scar its skyline, but also a growing conviction that compassion requires abandoning the rule of law.

It doesn’t. It never has.

The city — long choked by grime, hijacked buildings, and unregulated sprawl — has finally begun the hard work of reclaiming itself. Yet, as the municipal brooms start to sweep, a chorus of outrage erupts from certain corners: the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI), flanked by the South African Informal Traders Forum (SAITF), rushed back to the courts, draped in the language of rights, to defend what they call the “livelihoods of the poor.”

Let us not be naïve. This is not 2013’s Operation Clean Sweep all over again, though the echoes are painfully familiar. Back then, the City launched its first great clean-up — a bold if messy attempt to restore order. The pavements had been seized, the kerbs vanished beneath collapsing stalls, and trading permits were treated as optional decorations rather than legal requirements.

In December 2013, SAITF and SERI filed an urgent challenge at the Constitutional Court, arguing that the City’s enforcement drive violated constitutional rights. By April 2014, the Court ruled in their favour: due process, it said, had been trampled. The traders were vindicated.

Fair enough. Johannesburg’s administration of the day had blundered on procedure — a bureaucratic sin, not a moral one. The judgment, noble in intent, was supposed to teach the City the difference between authority and authoritarianism. But in the years that followed, the lesson metastasised into paralysis. The City’s hands trembled each time it tried to act. The pavements filled again. Illegal stalls multiplied like weeds after rain. And the silence of governance became the soundtrack of decline.

Between 2017 and 2020, the City tried again — this time turning its attention to hijacked buildings where thousands lived in conditions no human being should endure. SERI, among others, challenged those evictions, and the courts once again slowed the machinery of reform. The moral argument was humane: no one should be left on the streets. Yet the practical outcome was cruelly ironic — entire families remained trapped in buildings without water, electricity, or safety, while their landlords, long vanished, collected rent through fear and coercion. Compassion, detached from order, had become collusion with decay.

By 2023, a new administration relaunched the Inner City Revitalisation Strategy, a vision to restore Johannesburg’s dignity — clean pavements, working streetlights, buildings reclaimed for lawful habitation. The goal was not to erase the informal economy, but to integrate it — legally, safely, sustainably. Yet the moment enforcement began, the courtroom cavalry returned. In October 2024, SERI once again challenged the clean-up, alleging infringements of Section 22 of the Constitution — the right to trade freely.

One must ask: freely where, and under what law? Freedom does not mean lawlessness; it means fairness under rules that protect everyone — trader, resident, pedestrian alike. If every attempt at enforcement is met with an interdict, what hope does a city have of governing itself?

On Monday, 3 November 2025, the High Court finally broke the cycle. The City of Johannesburg won. The court affirmed what should never have been in doubt: that a municipality, acting lawfully and proportionately, has the right — indeed, the duty — to regulate, to restore, to protect.

And yet, even in victory, the City’s triumph feels fragile. Because it is not only fighting legal briefs — it is fighting a dangerous idea: that civic disorder is somehow an acceptable price for compassion.

Let us speak plainly. The majority of informal traders in the CBD are not villains, but neither are they all victims. Many are hardworking men and women who simply want to feed their families — and they deserve respect. But there is a difference between enterprise and encroachment. Between the trader who follows the rules, pays for a permit, and keeps their patch clean — and the one who sets up shop on a fire hydrant, blocks a doorway, or dumps refuse into the gutters. One contributes to the soul of the city; the other corrodes it.

Johannesburg is not a lawless frontier. It is a metropolis of millions of people, all of whom deserve dignity, safety, and clean streets. Residents have watched, year after year, as their city's arteries clogged with litter, traffic, and despair. They have paid their rates while dodging open sewers and burnt-out shells of buildings. They have watched in disbelief as every municipal attempt to enforce order is met with legal paperwork and moral posturing.

Let me emphasise… residents — the concerned and frustrated majority — have watched their city dissolve into chaos; filth creeping up the kerbs, buildings crumbling into fire-traps, and the urban pulse that once defined Johannesburg faltering under the weight of neglect.

When law enforcement finally stirs, the professional litigants arrive, citing procedural injustice, demanding “consultation,” and threatening injunctions. Meanwhile, refuse gathers, drug dens flourish, and hijacked buildings groan under the weight of human misery.

We must stop mistaking permissiveness for progress. A city without rules is not compassionate — it is collapsing.

And to the NGOs who wield the language of justice so loosely: beware the easy righteousness of the courtroom. There is a peril in aligning yourselves with lawlessness simply because it wears the face of poverty. You may win sympathy today, but you lose the city tomorrow. You cannot rejuvenate Johannesburg while protecting those who undermine it.

This is not a call for cruelty; it is a plea for courage. For the City to finish what it has started. To reclaim hijacked buildings and turn them into safe, lawful homes. To clear pavements and restore dignity to public space. To build regulated markets where informal traders can thrive legally — not illegally.

Johannesburg’s motto still declares it A World Class African City. That title must be earned anew — not through branding or billboards, but through the slow, unglamorous labour of governance. The restoration of a city is not a war on the poor; it is an act of love for the collective good.

Let the NGOs return to the table, not the courtroom. Let residents see action, not apologies. Let the pavements breathe again.

Johannesburg does not need more litigation; it needs leadership. It needs the courage to uphold the law without apology and the compassion to protect the vulnerable without enabling chaos. If the city is to rise again, we must make tough choices: the symbolism of moral posturing, or the substance of rebuilding a metropolis capable of dignity, safety, and ambition.

Only one of these choices will allow Johannesburg to breathe — and shine — again.