The court case between the City of Cape Town and a group of homeless people over fines issued to them took another turn as the city filed its responding papers to a contempt of court application at the eleventh hour, says a Cape Argus report.

‘The answering papers from the city were received at 12pm yesterday and we’re considering them, so unfortunately the matter wasn’t heard as we still need to reply to the city’s affidavit,’ said Lucien Lewin, a director at Dingley Marshall Inc, the law firm representing the seven applicants.

According to Lewin, the seven felt that they urgently needed to take action against the city after law enforcement and Cape Town officials continued to issue fines to the seven applicants and remove their possessions, despite agreeing to cease doing so pending a hearing in December.

The contempt of court application was lodged against Mayor Dan Plato, mayco member for Safety & Security JP Smith and the City’s executive director for Safety & Security, Richard Bosman.

‘We’ve asked for a suspended sentence, so if the court grants the order, they’ll not go to jail, but if they violate the court order again, they could receive jail sentences of 30 days,’ Lewin said.

However, Plato said neither he nor Smith were parties to the main application, ‘and it’s confusing, to say the least, as to why the applicants’ legal team have decided to add the political office-bearers to the contempt application’.

Plato said people were fined for contravening by-laws, regardless of their social status.

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