The parties met for hours behind closed doors at the court on Friday but failed to reach an agreement resulting in the matter being postponed. The City of Johannesburg started removing informal traders who it says are operating illegal and in areas not designated for trading. However, traders have accused the city of violating their rights to earn a decent living. They accuse the city of embarking on this clean-up operation because of the upcoming G20 Summit in Johannesburg later this month.

Johannesburg Mayor, Dada Morero believes the City has a strong case regarding the removal of illegal informal traders in parts of the city centre. SERI, which took up the case on behalf of the street traders argues that the removal of informal traders is unlawful and violates their rights to earn a living. Morero insists that the City is enforcing by-laws and wants to ensure that traders are registered and trade in designated areas.

“The city has a strong case and we believe that the proposals that we presented to SERI which the judge requested that we submit to him are likely to form part of the judgement because they are fair genuine and the intentional is to firstly ensure that we strengthen informal trading by ensuring that its in the right places that are safe and designated for trading so that the city can give them the support through its programmes and whoever is legitimately there can be registered and be issued with a smart card,” he said.

–SABC–