Programme News
21 February 2012
(News)
Judge Jeremy Pickering of the Eastern Cape High Court (Port Elizabeth) has ruled that at least four refugees can continue with their unlawful arrest and detention cases against the Home Affairs Department without having to provide security for legal costs, says a report in The Herald. Pickering said that public interest considerations dictate they not be denied access to the justice system. He...
16 February 2012
(Press release)
The High Court in Port Elizabeth today handed down a judgment in which it declared the Department of Home Affairs’ decision to close the Port Elizabeth Refugee Reception Office to be unlawful and ordered that it be re-opened and maintained for all refugees and asylum seekers, including new applicants for asylum.
On 20 October 2011, Home Affairs publicly announced that the PE Refugee...
16 February 2012
(Press release)
On the 14th of February 2012, Lawyers for Human Rights and the Centre for Environmental Rights, on behalf of 18 organisations linked to the Mining, Environment and Community Alliance, wrote to Mrs Edna Molewa, Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs where the Minister was urged to address the operation of mines without requisite water use licences acting with impunity exacerbating...
15 February 2012
(News)
The inaugural meeting of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances (the Committee) saw the induction of the Committee’s ten new members, and launched discussion on the body’s programme of work and rules of procedure. The session took place in Geneva from 8 to 11 November 2011, when meetings were held with non-governmental organisations (NGOs), State Parties,1 and with the Human Rights...
15 February 2012
(News)
Johannesburg - The Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) and the Zimbabwean Exiles Forum (ZEF) have launched a landmark case in the North Gauteng High Court to compel South Africa to abide by its legal obligations to investigate and prosecute high level Zimbabwean officials accused of crimes against humanity.
SALC and ZEF are asking the...
14 February 2012
(News)
MUSINA, 14 February 2012 (IRIN) - Four months ago, Clemence Uzizo, 21, a welder living in Soweto, Johannesburg's most populous suburb, made the mistake of venturing out to a local shop without his asylum-seeker permit. Neither the police who arrested him, nor the immigration officials who detained him, verified Uzizo's legal status before deporting him to Zimbabwe, the country of his birth....
9 February 2012
(Press release)
The High Court in Port Elizabeth today heard legal arguments regarding the lawfulness of the closure of the Port Elizabeth Refugee Reception Office (“PE RRO”). The office was closed to new asylum seekers on 21 October 2011 after only one day’s notice to local service providers and the refugee community.
The PE RRO has been open since the coming into operation of the...
9 February 2012
(Press release)
LHR welcomes the decision by the Constitutional court to dismiss an application for leave to appeal brought by the Department of Home Affairs. In a 2011 Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) decision which dealt with the protection of newly arrived asylum seekers, the SCA held that asylum seekers cannot be prevented from applying for asylum after being arrested. Once a person has declared their...
7 February 2012
(Press release)
Media Release - Mining-Environment-Communities Alliance:
Statement for the Mining Indaba
7 February 2012
1. For the past two years, there has been ongoing engagement between civil society, community organisations, academic institutions and law clinics increasingly concerned about the impacts of mining on the environment and on the communities that rely on...
6 February 2012
(News)
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) will today challenge the new rules pertaining to judicial reviews in terms of the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, says a report in The Mercury. The application in the North Gauteng High Court has been brought against the Rules Board for Courts of Law, who made the new rules, as well as against the Justice Minister, who approved the rules. The Rules Board...