Ladismith farmworker Karel Snyders (54) and his family have moved back into their home on the Voorbaat farm after the Constitutional Court overturned a 2015 eviction order obtained by owner Louisa de Jager, says a Cape Argus report. Karel Swart of the Commercial Stevedoring Agricultural and Allied Workers Union (CSAAWU) said the court had sent a clear message that ‘farmworkers are human’ and that they are ‘not just an extension of farm machinery and property’ to be ‘dumped at will’.

Snyders was fired by De Jager in 2008. Eviction proceedings began the same year but the Snyders family was only evicted in 2015, after years of battle in Magistrate’s, Land Claims and Appeal Courts. However, the eviction order was overturned in December 2016 allowing Snyders and family to return to the home they had lived in since 1992.

Swart said the ruling was ‘full restoration of farmworkers' humanity’, at a time when at least 1.7m had been ‘dumped’ countrywide by commercial farmers. ‘The upshot of the judgment is that terminating employment does not automatically terminate the right of residence of a farm dweller, in line with Section 19 of the Extension of Security of Tenure Act of 1997. De Jager was instructed to pay costs.’

Full Cape Argus report (subscription needed)

Snyders and Others v De Jager and Others