Article: Lonwabo Mtyeku – GP News Media, Community Newsroom
Johannesburg – 31 October 2025
The bustling streets of Johannesburg’s inner city — long a living symbol of South Africa’s entrepreneurial grit — have become the stage for a legal and moral confrontation that cuts to the heart of urban survival.
On Friday, the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) and the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI) faced off in the Gauteng High Court over the city’s mass removals of informal traders deemed to be operating “illegally.” What may appear on the surface as a regulatory dispute has in fact ignited a much deeper national conversation: who has the right to the city — and at what cost?
Outside the court, dozens of informal traders gathered with placards reading “We are workers, not criminals” and “Our stalls feed families.” For many, this was not just a legal matter but a fight for their right to exist within Johannesburg’s economic ecosystem.
A City Under Pressure
For the City of Johannesburg, the crackdown comes amid growing pressure to restore order to the inner city ahead of the G20 Leaders’ Summit, set to take place in Johannesburg in 2026. Mayor Dada Morero has framed the city’s recent enforcement blitz as a matter of “urban renewal and safety,” insisting that the municipality has a legal duty to uphold trading bylaws.
“We support informal trading — but it must be orderly,” said Morero in a statement earlier this week. “The city cannot allow unregulated markets that obstruct movement, compromise hygiene, or undermine law and order.”
The city argues that many traders are operating without valid permits or outside designated trading zones, creating congestion and undermining legitimate businesses. But critics say the city’s approach — heavy-handed removals, confiscations, and sudden evictions — betrays both the letter and spirit of South Africa’s constitutional democracy.
Rights and Realities
Representing the traders, SERI contends that Johannesburg’s actions amount to an assault on the right to dignity, work, and livelihood, guaranteed under the Constitution. The organisation is seeking urgent relief from the court to stop what it calls “unlawful evictions” and the destruction of traders’ infrastructure.
“These traders are not asking for charity — they are asking for fairness,” said Nomzamo Zondo, SERI’s Executive Director. “The city cannot criminalise survival. Many of these individuals have traded from the same spots for years, paying fees, supporting families, and contributing to the informal economy that sustains Johannesburg.”
SERI’s application builds on past constitutional and high court precedents affirming informal traders’ rights, most notably the 2013 “Operation Clean Sweep” case, in which mass evictions were declared unlawful and unconstitutional.
Yet, more than a decade later, the cycle seems to have returned — a reflection of the persistent tension between governance and survival in South Africa’s urban centres.
The Human Cost
For people like Lindiwe Nkosi, who has sold fruit and snacks outside Noord Taxi Rank for eight years, the stakes are painfully personal.
“I wake up at 4 a.m. to buy stock in City Deep,” she said. “Last week, they took my table and cooler box. I have no other income. I just want to work with dignity.”
Her story mirrors thousands of others: single mothers, retrenched workers, and young entrepreneurs who rely on informal trade to stay afloat in an economy where unemployment hovers around 32%.
The informal sector contributes up to 6% of South Africa’s GDP, according to Stats SA, and provides a livelihood for more than 2.5 million people. It’s an invisible engine that keeps many communities alive — even as its participants operate under constant threat of displacement.
A Balancing Act Between Order and Inclusion
Urban planners say Johannesburg’s dilemma is not unique. Cities across Africa — from Nairobi to Lagos — are grappling with how to regulate informal trade without erasing it.
“The real challenge,” explains Dr. Busisiwe Nkuna, an urban policy analyst at Wits University, “is that South Africa’s cities were never designed for inclusive economies. We inherited spatial systems that criminalise informality. Unless planning changes, enforcement will always collide with survival.”
Johannesburg’s Inner-City Revitalisation Plan has made progress in certain areas, with designated trading zones and pilot projects. But traders say these are often limited, poorly located, or inaccessible.
SERI argues that what’s needed is not eradication, but integration — a reimagining of urban policy that sees street trading as a legitimate part of Johannesburg’s economic identity, not a nuisance to be swept away.
The Broader Implications
Friday’s hearing ended with the matter postponed to Monday, giving both parties time to make additional submissions. For the traders who stood outside the courthouse, holding signs and hope, it was another weekend of uncertainty.
But the implications of this case go far beyond the city’s borders. The outcome could set a crucial precedent for how municipalities across South Africa balance bylaw enforcement with socio-economic rights, and whether informal traders can finally be recognised not as obstacles to progress — but as participants in it.
As one protest banner read: “We build this city too.”
Conclusion
In the shadow of Johannesburg’s skyline, the story of CoJ vs SERI is about more than permits and pavement space — it is about the soul of the city itself.
Whether the High Court sides with regulation or rights, one truth endures: the heartbeat of Johannesburg has always pulsed strongest not in its glass towers, but in its streets — where ordinary South Africans turn resilience into survival, and survival into enterprise.