Cases and Judgements
(Case)
08/04/2008
Newly arrived asylum seekers in South Africa cannot immediately access the Department’s asylum application procedure. The Unit has achieved some success in addressing this unsatisfactory situation with the two court applications that it launched during 2005 and 2006. Pursuant to these...
(Case)
08/04/2008
(Case)
08/04/2008
Currently, disabled refugees in South Africa are excluded from accessing government-provided social assistance grants. The Strategic Litigation Unit represents a number of individual refugees who are disabled, and two refugee organisations that have refugee members who are disabled. We assisted our...
(Case)
08/04/2008
In this matter, a high school threatened disciplinary steps against our client’s daughter, a Tamil Hindu, for wearing a nose stud in expression of her cultural practices and religious beliefs. After the Durban Magistrate’s Equality Court handed down a judgement in favour of the school,...
(Case)
08/04/2008
The Litigation Unit is currently representing a client who was atrociously tortured in his country of origin, Angola. After he applied for asylum in South Africa, the Department of Home Affairs took in excess of 2 years to determine our client’s status and reach the decision to reject his...
(Case)
08/04/2008
In this case, the Unit represents a Chinese national who has four children. The client initially came to South Africa after fleeing persecution on the basis of his political opinion. However, in the 12 years that he has been in South Africa, the client fathered 4 children with his wife. Accordingly...
(Case)
08/04/2008
In this matter, our client had been married in terms of Muslim personal law for 28 years. Upon her divorce, she instituted an action for a half share of her husband’s property and rehabilitative maintenance for 12 months. She did not succeed with this action. The Unit stepped in after the...
(Case)
08/04/2008
Acess, an alliance of non-governmental organisations working to protect children’s rights, has launched a Court application in the Pretoria High Court seeking to strike down the Social Assistance Act and its Regulations’ inflexible requirement that children and/or foster parents should...
(Case)
08/04/2008
At the end of 2004 the Strategic Litigation Unit successfully entrenched the principle that government departments could not without due process detain and deport unaccompanied foreign children from South Africa. Pursuant to an application brought by Lawyers for Human Rights, the Pretoria High...
(Case)
08/04/2008
This case is on its way to the Supreme Court of Appeal. In this matter, the Pretoria High Court upheld a defence of impossibility to a Mandament van Spolie claim. The local authority (Tshwane) and S A Police Services unlawfully evicted a large group of informal dwellers from a vacant piece of land...