In what a Cape Argus report calls a scathing judgment made against Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, Western Cape High Court Judge Daniel Thulare dismissed the city’s attempt to challenge a decision to secure a child’s inheritance.

The minor child involved was orphaned after his mother was murdered by her husband.

With no maternal or paternal family to care for him, the court ordered that Hill-Lewis had to 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 the Eastern Cape and the DG for the National Department of Social Development.

The three complied with the orders of the court respectively.

Thulare noted that Hill-Lewis argued the matter on a technical basis.

‘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 (of the Constitution) presupposes that in our new dispensation the sins and traumas of fathers and mothers should not be visited on their children.’

Thulare added: ‘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.’

Full Cape Argus report

Judgment