The scourge of homelessness and evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic in the City of Johannesburg
Posted: 6 May, 2020 Filed under: Bonolo Makgale | Tags: ANC, arbitrary evictions, attachment orders, City of Johannesburg, constitution, COVID-19, DA, demolitions, electoral promises, essential services, evicted from their home, Geoff Makhubo, home demolished, homelessness, ILO, informal settlements, Johannesburg, Lakeview settlement, Lindiwe Sisulu, lockdown, No legislation, pandemic, poverty, Red Ants, right to housing, South Africa, South African Constitution, temporary housing Leave a comment
Author: Bonolo Makgale
Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
Introduction
After confirming the country’s first COVID-19 case on 5 March, South Africa braced itself for a 21-day lockdown, which officially began on 26 March and was initially intended to last until 16 April. The lockdown was subsequently extended to 30 April and has been further extended indefinitely with relaxation of some of the restrictions and some sectors of the economy being allowed to reopen, along with the extension of certain socio-economic relief mechanisms intended to cushion citizens from the hardships that the pandemic is sure to induce. In this light, one of the regulations included a moratorium on evictions, with the understanding that evictions would place vulnerable persons at risk of contracting and transmitting the virus. The provision stipulates: “All evictions and executions of attachment orders, both movable and immovable, including the removal of movable assets and sales in executions, is suspended with immediate effect for the duration of the lockdown.” These regulations were aimed at minimising possible losses of income, particularly among the working class and people in the informal sector.
The upcoming Hate Crimes Bill: A welcome development in the fight against xenophobia and hate crimes in South Africa
Posted: 5 August, 2016 Filed under: Gideon Muchiri | Tags: Abubacarr Saidykhan, belief, birth, constitution, crime, culture, disability, Equality Act, ethnic or social origin, gender, gender identity, Hate Crimes Bill, hate speech, human rights, language, law, legislation, monitoring mechanism, National Prosecution Authority, nationality, NPA, occupation, police, Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, race, religion, sex, sexual orientat, South Africa, South African Constitution, victim, xenophobia 1 Comment
Author: Gideon Muchiri
LLD student, Department of Jurisprudence, University of Pretoria
The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DOJCD) of South Africa is working on the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes Bill,[1] due for tabling in Parliament in September 2016. This Bill, if enacted into law, will strengthen the role of law enforcement officials including the police, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and courts in holding perpetrators of hate crimes, including xenophobic conduct, legally accountable for not only the criminal acts committed, but also for the hate motive. The new law will foster a rights-based approach to enhancement of the rights of victims and thus send a clear and unequivocal message to the society that crimes motivated by hate and xenophobia will not be tolerated in South Africa and are subject to punishment.
Xenophobia in South Africa: The time for introspection has come
Posted: 13 June, 2013 Filed under: Josua Loots | Tags: Africa, African Union, apartheid, constitution, foreign nationals, human rights, mob violence, rule of law, SAPS, South Africa, South African Constitution, xenophobia, xenophobic violence 9 Comments
Author: Josua Loots
Project Manager, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
Xenophobia, just like so many other unsettling issues in South Africa, is gradually becoming part of the way in which we are perceived as a society. The newest upsurge in xenophobic violence clearly indicates that we have not made significant progress since the problem surfaced in 2008. More unsettling however, is the unwillingness of South Africans from all levels of society to acknowledge and address the problem – media houses neglect to conduct in-depth investigations, politicians fail to express their concern over the issue, the South African Police Service controversially fuels public perception through its involvement in incidents regarding foreign nationals, and civilians exercise mob executions with self-righteousness and pride.
The South African Constitution offers protection to citizens and non-citizens, and is one of few constitutions in the world that indisputably does so. The preamble of the Constitution reiterates South Africa’s commitment to uphold the rule of law, and this commitment greatly depends on consistent application of the law in South Africa. It is imperative that South Africans understand that our own claims on the protection of and rights entrenched in the Constitution depend on respecting the rights of others. Arbitrary mob killings of foreign nationals during the past five years suggest that South Africans struggle to come to terms that all people are equal before the law. Allegations of foreign nationals being involved in criminal activities often lead to mob justice, which is a dangerous step towards corroding the rule of law, and eventually the Constitution upon which our society so greatly depends.
On constitutional values, Marikana and the demise of the SADC Tribunal
Posted: 23 August, 2012 Filed under: Magnus Killander | Tags: African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, criminal procedure, extreme inequalities, human rights, public violence, right to a fair trial, SADC, South African Constitution, unemployment 6 Comments
Author: Magnus Killander
Senior Lecturer & Head of Research, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
Section 1 of the Constitution sets out the founding values of the Republic of South Africa: dignity, equality, human rights, non-racialism, non-sexism, constitutional supremacy, rule of law, regular elections, accountability, responsiveness and openness.
The tragic shootings in Marikana, which took place on 16 August 2012, have led not only to much needed discussion on how equipped and prepared the police are to respond to violent protest, but also discussion about the underlying factors which led to these protests, and why they were so violent. Important questions must be asked about the shootings. Video footage of the incident suggests that it was not a clear cut case of self-defence. Accountability must prevail, both for workers responsible for violence and the police. Hopefully the Commission of Inquiry, established by President Jacob Zuma, will receive a broad mandate to investigate not only the shootings, but also a range of related issues related to what happened before and after.
An intra-african dialogue in the new era of constitutionalism
Posted: 2 April, 2012 Filed under: Charles Fombad | Tags: Africa, ancl, constitutionalism, law, South African Constitution, South African Constitutional Court 9 Comments
Author: Prof Charles Fombad
Professor, Centre for Human Rights; Head, Unit on Comparative African Constitutional Law at the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa
For perhaps too long, the conventional wisdom has been that the best can come only from abroad; meaning Europe and America. From the perspective of constitutional law, the South African Constitution did more than just provide a clean break with the past. It provided a modern constitution which successfully borrowed and adapted many of the best principles from some of the major modern European constitutional models to fit with the realities of the country. Whilst not perfect, and there shall never be a perfect constitution, it shows how Africans can creatively find solutions to their problems.But it is perhaps the South African Constitutional Court, through the voluminous amount of jurisprudence that it has produced since 1995,that has attracted the most attention from constitutional experts all over the world and given rise to the feeling that the centre of modern constitutionalism might well be moving to Africa. For a continent that has been obsessed with blindly copying from the former colonial powers, there are many reasons to start looking at itself.Even the 1990s constitutional reforms in other African countries were still influenced by the inherited colonial constitutional models.
AfricLaw 