South Africa

Primary tabs

Appeal of South Gauteng High Court’s dismissal of application for interim relief brought by South African Informal Traders Forum and South African National Traders Retail Association. Appellants cited their right to access to courts under Section 34 of the South African constitution as a basis of their appeal.

On 10 October, 2013, ESCR-Net sent an Urgent Action appeal in response to the recent murders, arbitrary detentions, intimidation and threats against leaders of the shack-dweller movement and ESCR-Net member, Abahlali baseMjondolo and called on the Government of South Africa to uphold its human rights obligations.

This case concerns the attempted eviction of tenants of certain residential flats in Johannesburg.  These tenants had been living in these flats subject to various leases, some for nearly twenty years.  The leases contained a provision allowing either party to terminate the lease with certain notice.  Three years before the attempted evictions the landlord told the tenants to pay double or triple their rent or leave their homes. When the tenants refused, the landlord terminated their leases.

Country: 
South Africa
Working Group(s) / Area(s) of Work: 
OP-ICESCR

This case concerns a 2009 appeal before the Constitutional Court of South Africa, brought by the Head of the Mpumalanga Department of Education (HoD).

ESCR-Net's Social Movement Working Group brings together social movements to forge new alliances, promote mutual learning and advance collaborative work

View the final report from the session on OP-ICESCR ratification organized as a part of the Social Rights Litigation Workshop held in South Africa on 12-14 March 2012.

In September 2011, the residents of Langaville Informal Settlement (comprised of more than one thousand and five hundred households and four thousand and six hundred residents) represented by the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI), requested an order directing the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality to provide sufficient access to water and basic sanitation recognized in the Constitution of South Africa, through the Water Services Act, Regulation 3 of the Regulations Relating to Compulsory National Standards and Measures to Conserve Water (GN R509 in GG 22355 of 8 June

ESCR-Net together with SERI, the NGO Coalition for the OP-ICESCR and the Norwegian Centre on Human Rights convened a three-day workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The Constitutional Court today declared the City of Johannesburg's housing policy unconstitutional and ordered the City to provide temporary accommodation to 86 desperately poor people living in Berea in inner city Johannesburg. The Court was ruling on the application of Blue Moonlight Properties to evict the occupiers from its property.