Summary
The South African Constitutional Court was asked to decide whether tenants of a block of flats were entitled to notice before the municipal electricity utility, City Power, disconnected their supply. The tenants paid for their electricity to the owner of the property, and despite their regular payment, the owner allowed substantial arrears to run up on the account, and City Power disconnected the property, giving the owner, but not the tenants, notice. The tenants claimed that the disconnection without notice violated their constitutional right to access to adequate housing (implying a right to electricity) and human dignity (under sections 26 and 10 of the South Africa Constitution, respectively), and their contractual rights against the owner of the property. They also challenged the constitutional validity of by-laws allowing termination without affording notice and an opportunity to make representations.
The primary issue in the case was whether the applicants were entitled to procedural fairness under domestic law, considering the relationship between City Power as a service provider and the end users of that service. Unanimously reversing the decision of the High Court, the Constitutional Court considered that electricity is an important basic municipal service and decided that local government had a constitutional and statutory obligation to provide it. Therefore, receiving electricity was declared to be a public law right, by virtue of Constitutional and statutory obligations. Accordingly, the applicants were entitled to procedural fairness in the exercise of the right, and the Court found that this included adequate notice of at least 14 days before disconnection. By-laws within City Power dispensing with this obligation to adequately inform those receiving electricity were declared inconsistent with the Constitution.
Keywords: Joseph v. the City of Johannesburg 2010 (4) SA 55, Housing, Rights