On June 29 this year, amid the generalized panic and concern about rising COVID-19 infection and police brutality both locally and globally, the South Gauteng High Court, in Johannesburg, issued a judgement with potentially major implications for the future of policing in Johannesburg and South Africa more widely.

The judgement related to a challenge lodged by the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI) regarding the constitutionality of a series of raids catalyzed by the then Democratic Alliance (DA) mayor of Johannesburg, Herman Mashaba, on so-called “hijacked buildings”—unlawful occupations—in Johannesburg. The raids involved the South African Police Services (SAPS), the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD), and immigration officials, among other state actors, from June 2017 to May 2018.

This year under a state of disaster, President Cyril Ramaphosa, of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), deployed the South African army, from late March until end September, to support police in enforcing a phased national lockdown aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19; the lockdown is presently in its final phase. Crime dropped drastically in the first three months of lockdown, though cases of police brutality rose.

The implications of the court judgement, coming at this time, raise questions not only about the raids during Mashaba’s period as mayor from August 2016 to November 2019, but also the long-term effectiveness and constitutionality of militarized urban policing, and how we imagine the post-COVID city.

Militarized policing is characterized not by a single strategy but broadly encompasses a spectrum of heavy-handed, war-like policing tactics oriented around raids; the targeting of buildings, neighborhoods, and borders; profiling groups rather than individuals; and coercive crowd-control.

Mashaba—who on August 29 launched a new party, ActionSA—made these police raids a centerpiece of his strategy, while mayor, of crime prevention in inner-city Johannesburg, pronouncing the inner city a “battlefield.” In particular, he framed, and continues to do so, undocumented migration as central to crime in Johannesburg. Mashaba cast his leadership as a new beginning for a city free of ANC rule for the first time; in fact, his policies represented more of a continuity than a break—a culmination of a decade’s failed attempts to police poverty, and an un-reflexive belief that challenges around unlawful occupation and migration are best resolved with force.

The June 29 judgement by a full bench of the High Court was scathing. It found that “the raids on the applicants’ homes were carried out in a manner that was cruel, humiliating, degrading and invasive”, and that “the police searched the applicants’ homes, without a warrant, regardless of whether they were involved in, or suspected of being involved in, any crimes.” The city’s intention to use the raid to “audit” residents of “hijacked buildings” was found to be unlawful. Neither was it permissible for them, the JMPD or immigration officials to participate in raids under section 13 (7)  of the South African Police Services Act, which only authorize SAPS to do so.

The judgement found that there was no strong evidence either to justify the raids on grounds of a “breakdown of public order”, required by section 13 (7), or to demonstrate that they were effective. Out-of-date, template-based and erroneous statistics were repeatedly used. The judgement found that “save for the arrest of a handful of undocumented migrants, police found no evidence of illegality at the applicants’ homes. The intelligence on which the raids were based was obviously flawed. SAPS and JMPD officers arbitrarily detained those of the applicants who ‘looked too dark’ to be South African.”

The Court also found article 13(7)(c), which allows for the warrantless invasion of homes, vehicles and neighborhoods, unconstitutional. The declaration of unconstitutionality was suspended for two years for parliament to address the invalidity. SERI is appealing to the Constitutional Court to make the whole of 13(7)—applied to cordon off of entire areas— unconstitutional. In addition, they are seeking damages for the nearly 3,000 residents of the eleven targeted buildings, and for there to be an interdict on future raids in the buildings. The Constitutional Court also needs to confirm the High Court’s order.

The judgement may have major implications for policing in South Africa. Throughout the COVID-19 crisis the police have been led by a Minister of Police, Bheki Cele, who in his previous role as Police Commissioner promoted police militarization and shoot-to-kill policies. He has boasted of major drops in crime during the lockdown period. Yet militarized approaches towards policing urban spaces have, over the past decade, both locally and globally, been brutal, ineffective, and anti-poor. All the same, they have been supported across the political spectrum both in South Africa and internationally.

How is it that militarized strategies of policing, aimed at securing public order, can be effective, if brutal, under a state of disaster, and yet, in the long run, ineffective and socially corrosive?