Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has been slammed for trying to challenge a court decision to secure an orphan’s inheritance.
In a scathing judgement made against Hill-Lewis, Western Cape High Court Judge Daniel Thulare has dismissed the City of Cape Town’s attempt to take the child’s home away.
The laaitie was orphaned after his mother was murdered by her husband.
Her burnt body was dumped in a shallow grave on a river bank. With no family to care for him, the court ordered that Hill-Lewis establish a Trust for the benefit of the child, and assist him with obtaining ownership of the RDP house he lived in with his mother.
The court had also made certain orders in respect of the curator, the Premier of Eastern Cape and the Director-General for the National Department of Social Development.
The three complied with the orders of the Court respectively. Judge Thulare noted that Hill-Lewis argued the matter on a technical basis.
Judge Thulare says: “The thinking seems to be that the court was supposed to treat the child ‘as a mere extension of his parents, umbilically destined to sink with them’.
“This was to be the case even when the legal position was that the unusually comprehensive and emancipatory character of section 28 presupposes that in our new dispensation, the sins and traumas of fathers and mothers should not be visited on their children.
“His (Hill-Lewis’) attitude is that the risk of children who are victims of crime losing the benefit of a home, while those not entitled to the houses owned by the children’s deceased and/or imprisoned parents enjoy them, is none of his business and the courts must leave him alone.
“It may be so, but the case presents an opportunity to test that and he cannot run to the appeal court to cancel the whole examination.
In response to a Daily Voice query, the City responded: “The City notes the decision to dismiss the leave to appeal by Judge Thulare. There appears to be little rationale or legal basis for the dismissal, and the City is now taking legal advice on directly petitioning the SCA (Supreme Court of Appeal) for leave to appeal.”
Director of child protection NPO Molo Songololo, Patric Solomons, applauded Judge Thulare’s verdict.
He says: “We calls on the Mayor to take the example of the judge, and put the rights of the child first.”