The Western Cape High Court on Friday granted State-owned defence industrial group Denel an interim order forbidding anyone from entering or re-entering its Philippi property in the Western Cape province. The property lies close to Khayelitsha, itself a partially formal and partially informal suburb of Cape Town.

Denel’s urgent application for the interim order was argued before Judge M I Samela. Representatives of the group which had illegally occupied the company’s land were also heard by the judge. The return date for the interim order is April 21.

This follows the successful securing of an interdict from the same court on Tuesday, forbidding people to illegally enter and occupy the property. The interdict also forbade anyone to incite people to illegally enter the property.

These legal actions were in response to events on Monday (April 6), when a number of people illegally entered the property and occupied part of it. According to Denel, these people were led by members of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) political party, as part of that party’s land occupation campaign. (The EFF has 25 seats in the National Assembly.)

Denel reported on Friday that the number of illegal occupants at the Philippi property had declined since it had obtained the interdict on Tuesday. “Illegally occupied land will surely not fall within municipal or provincial government plans for the provision of basic services,” pointed out the group in a press release. “Any illegal occupation, therefore, in essence creates a much bigger problem for our communities.”

“Denel SOC [State Owned Company] strongly condemns the illegal occupation of the land or any acts that seek to undermine the laws of the country,” it stressed. “Acts of this nature play with the emotions of poor people in that people who lead such invasions do not warn people that they are breaking the law and their hopes will be dashed as the law will subsequently take its course because we live in a constitutional democracy with laws, rights and responsibilities that govern all aspects of our lives.”