Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale misunderstood the Constitution and the reasons that poor people crowded into shack settlements and inner city buildings, rights organisations said on Friday.

"Poor people will continue to move to urban centres in search of jobs, whether or not courts defend their rights," the organisations said in a statement.

"It would be better if the government acknowledged this reality and saw this as an opportunity for economic development and growth, which would be part of its development of an appropriate urban housing framework."

The organisations are the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa, Section 27, the Legal Resources Centre, Lawyers for Human Rights, the Community Law Centre, and the Centre for Applied Legal Studies.

They said Sexwale had this year repeatedly referred to the "worrying trend" of the "legalisation of illegality" entrenched by recent court rulings.

He had asserted that the rise in the number of informal settlements in the country was largely as a result of "powerful court rulings in favour of illegal settlers".

"What the minister apparently fails to recognise is that for millions of poor citizens (and noncitizens), informal settlements and inner city buildings are the only forms of accommodation available in the city or close to it," the organisations said.

These forms of housing had two advantages which state housing developments often failed to provide – closer location to jobs, and affordability.

"The proliferation of these forms of informal housing has little to do with court judgments," they said.

"[It has] everything to do with the failures of the state at all levels to provide affordable public rental housing for poor people in cities, and to upgrade informal settlements in situ, close to jobs and socio-economic infrastructure."

Demolishing shacks in informal settlements and confiscating building materials was "not the answer".

Nor was evicting poor tenants who had no alternative but to live in allegedly hijacked inner city buildings.

The reality was that most social housing projects catered mainly for households earning between R3 500 and R7 500 a month.

Yet the vast majority of households in South Africa – about 86% – earned R3 200 or less a month.

They said Sexwale's comments on court judgments included an implicit attack on the independence of the judiciary and its mandate to enforce all constitutional rights and the obligations they imposed on the state.

"The minister's statements highlight the fact that he does not understand the Constitution or value the constitutionally mandated role of civil society and the courts in advancing rights and equality."