All Press Releases
13 July 2017
Lawyers for Human Rights must unfortunately express its disappointment in today’s judgment of the Constitutional Court in the matter of Baron v Claytile. We had hoped that the Court would make use of this matter to develop the law concerning “suitable alternative accommodation” for Esta occupiers (occupiers on farm land) in a manner that is progressive and that also places...
11 July 2017
The Labour Appeal Court handed down a significant decision on 10 July 2017 in the matter of NUMSA v Assign Services and 3 Others. The Court found that sections 198A(3)(b)(i) of the Labour Relations Act (LRA) restricts the application of Temporary Employment Services (TES), also known as labour brokers, to genuine temporary employment and protects the rights of placed workers. The effect of the...
5 July 2017
Nine months after having their homes demolished allegedly by the Inqguza Hill Local Municipality in Lusikisiki, Eastern Cape, over 150 people from the New Rest community remain without shelter or basic services. This is despite the court order of 18 October 2016 by the High Court in Grahamstown directing the Municipality to provide its constituents with emergency shelter and aid.
When the...
29 June 2017
29 June 2017
The Constitutional Court handed down a historic decision today in the matter of Lawyers for Human Rights v. Minister of Home Affairs and others; the Court unanimously found that sections 34(1)(b) and (d) of the Immigration Act are inconsistent with the Constitution and therefore invalid. The Court ruled that the rights guaranteed in section 12 and 35 of the South African...
28 June 2017
28 June 2017
Judgment will be handed down tomorrow morning by the Constitutional Court in the matter of Lawyers for Human Rights v. Minister of Home Affairs and others. In the case, which was heard in March, Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) charged that section 34 of the Immigration Act does not sufficiently protect the right of those detained for immigration irregularities to present...
21 June 2017
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) is deeply unsatisfied with the South African Police Service (SAPS) and Civilian Secretariat for Police reports on police compliance with the Domestic Violence Act, presented in the Portfolio Committee on Police in Parliament today. The Minister of Police has stated that domestic violence is a SAPS priority, but today’s reports do not bear that out....
20 June 2017
Today (20 June 2017), on World Refugee Day, Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) successfully fought for the freedom of a Syrian refugee who had been detained on the basis of a fraudulent asylum permit since late May. The lawyers charged that the Applicant’s detention was wrong in both substance and procedure, as he had not been charged with any crime or been allowed to exercise his right to...
18 June 2017
On World Refugee Day, 20 June 2017, the Gauteng Provincial High Court in Pretoria will hear legal arguments by the Somali Association of South Africa (SASA) through their legal representative, Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) in an attempt to address the current crisis of quality refugee ajudication at the Refugee Appeal Board (RAB).
It is contended that the RAB judgments reflect a...
30 May 2017
In 2013 Anglo American served 34 families with notices of eviction. These families were given two months to vacate homes that they have been occupying, for some families since 1976. Anglo American, did so without considering that these families maybe rendered homeless.
The mining company has argued that they do not own the houses occupied by these families but lease them from Eskom. Since...
25 May 2017
Lawyers for Human Rights stands in solidarity with its civil society peers in condemning efforts by a subsidiary of Australian mining company Minerals Commodities Limited (MRC) to silence criticism of its controversial plans to mine mineral sands at Xolobeni on South Africa’s Wild Coast.
Defamation lawsuits filed this month by MRC against two attorneys at the Centre for...