Between coordination and enforcement: What the GBVF disaster declaration actually delivers
Posted: 8 June, 2026 Filed under: Rethabile Mosese | Tags: accountability, ActionSA, criminal justice system, Disaster Management Act, Domestic Violence Act, femicide, GBVF, gender-based violence, legal advocacy organisations, national disaster, National Disaster Management Centre, National Prosecuting Authority, National Shelter Movement of South Africa, political decision, Public Finance Management Act, Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust, sexual offences, Sexual Offences Act, Victims of Crime Survey, Women for Change Leave a comment
Author: Rethabile Mosese
Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
A political victory, a legal question
On 21 November 2025, thousands of women lay on the ground for fifteen minutes at the Union Buildings, in shopping centres, on pavements and office floors, honouring the women killed every day in South Africa. I joined them knowing that these numbers are not abstract. Though exact figures fluctuate with reporting cycles, research by the South African Medical Research Council and Gender and Firearms Studies Africa estimates that around fifteen women are murdered daily. Hours after this collective act of mourning, government declared gender-based violence and femicide a national disaster under the Disaster Management Act. For many, the declaration felt like long-awaited recognition. But the legal instrument government chose matters as much as the declaration itself. Having spent over a decade inside the systems meant to protect survivors, I understand how much turns on that choice.
Has the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of South Africa’s constitutional democracy?
Posted: 23 July, 2020 Filed under: Paul Mudau | Tags: apartheid-era, Bill of Rights, Collins Khoza, constitutional democracy, coronavirus, COVID-19, COVID-19 pandemic, Cyril Ramaphosa, democracy, Disaster Management Act, extraordinary legal measures, Gary Pienaar, isolation measures, lockdown, lockdown regulations, National Disaster Management Centre, nationwide lockdown, pandemic, PCCC, South Africa, state of emergency, Table of Non-Derogable Rights 3 Comments
Author: Paul Mudau
PhD Candidate and Researcher, School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand
On 15 March 2020, and while owing to medical and scientific advice and with the aim of controlling and managing the invasion and the spread of the invisible enemy, the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa introduced extraordinary legal measures, placed the country under a nationwide lockdown and sealed its international borders. The lockdown took effect from 27 March 2020. The President simultaneously declared a national state of disaster in terms of section 27 of the Disaster Management Act (52 of 2002). Apart from the 1996 Constitution, the Disaster Management Act is applicable during lockdown together with other relevant statutes such as the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 and Prevention of Combating and Torture of Persons Act 13 of 2013. This, was followed by a series of announcements and impositions of numerous lockdown Regulations and Directives that require hygienic practices, physical and social distancing, quarantine, and isolation measures.
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