Constitutional Court shows DFA the door

Abstract

In October 2009, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) declared parts of the Development Facilitation Act (DFA) unconstitutional. The Gauteng Development Tribunal was making land use management decisions and bypassing municipal land-use planning processes on the basis of the DFA. The SCA held that this violates municipalities' right to administer 'municipal planning', listed in Schedule 4B of the Constitution as a municipal power.