Our Work
How We Work
We use the law as an instrument to realise human rights.
The LRC brings a breadth of experience and a deep knowledge to our work. Over the last five decades, we have gained valuable experience in using strategic litigation, legal reform, research, and advocacy to create positive and long-lasting change in the lives of our beneficiaries. By providing free, expert, and compassionate legal services to individuals, we have provided many ordinary South Africans with the resources to stand up to injustice.
By working with our extensive network of civil society partners and allies, in the service of vulnerable individuals and communities in South Africa and other African nations, we have successfully created legal precedents and won judgments which have made a tangible impact in the lives of millions of people living in South Africa and beyond.
Our areas of focus have included legal reform of corporal punishment in South Africa, access to land, education, and health care, as well as advancing gender and racial equality and the rights of the disabled. We have also worked with partners and communities in other parts of Africa and the global South to support activists facing similar challenges.
In addition to this legacy work, we have identified land and education rights as key drivers of change in South Africa today. Our experienced and diverse team, working across South Africa, have committed themselves to helping landless people to gain access to land and ensure that our children have access to a quality basic education.
Bezuidenhout
Seeking clarity on land reform and redistribution in South Africa.
When Johannes Bezuidenhout, Herold Bezuidenhout, and Jan Bergh were told in 2009 that they would be allocated farmland in the Beaufort West area through the state’s redistribution programme, it was a dream come true for the three men. As the children of farm workers from the area, this opportunity not only gave them a chance to realise their passion for farming, but it also redressed discriminatory patterns of access to land, which under the apartheid regime, saw only white farmers owning land in the area. Their sheep farming operations became highly successful, and in 2020 as well as 2023, their wool obtained the highest average price for the Beaufort West region at the national wool auction in Gqeberha.
However, like thousands of other potential land reform beneficiaries, they were faced with an opaque, unaccountable and inequitable system. While section 25(5) of the Constitution makes provision for the redistribution of land, there has never been legislation that clearly sets out how the Department should do this. Instead, successive land redistribution policies have been published by the Department to guide the programme, but these policies lack clear application and allocation procedures, require no communication of decisions or reasons, and do not provide the applicants for state land with any recourse should their applications be unsuccessful. In addition, the policies were often not published, making it difficult for potential beneficiaries to know what will be considered when they apply, and enabling decision makers to shift their reasoning as they pleased. In an expert affidavit to the Court, Prof Ruth Hall of PLAAS said that their extensive research of the redistribution programme showed that “the selection of people and allocation of land to them is not transparent. We also found that decisions taken are frequently changed afterwards, with beneficiaries being told they must leave the land allocated to them, or share it with other people, or cease their own farming to make way for companies contracted by government as ‘strategic partners’ to manage ‘their’ farms for them”. Land leases, they found, were “chaotic”.
The three farmers filed an application in the Western Cape High Court to review and set aside a decision by the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (as it then was) to not award a 30-year lease to their farming entity over five farms in the Beaufort West District, collectively known as Plateau Farms.
In December 2019, the Department placed an advertisement in the newspaper, calling for applicants for a 30-year lease over Plateau Farm. Through Nuveld, the applicants applied for the lease, underwent an interview process, and was recommended by both the Provincial and National Land Acquisition and Allocation Control Committees as the preferred candidates for the lease. Despite this recommendation, the Acting Chief Director at the time took a decision on 27 September 2020, not to award the lease to Nuveld. This was never communicated to the applicants. The three farmers say the decision was unreasonable, irrational and procedurally unfair.
They are also asking the court for declaratory relief to address the Department’s failure to create a transparent, accountable, fair and consistent legal and policy framework for land redistribution in South Africa. The relief, supported by the East Cape Agricultural Research Project, is for an order that any applicant that applies for a state land lease has a right to administrative action that is lawful, reasonable, and procedurally fair.
“This declaratory relief will help other people in the same position as the applicants to better understand and navigate the Department’s redistribution programmes and will compel the Department to amend its processes to create a more transparent system.”
– Cecile van Schalkwyk, LRC Attorney
Gwatyu
Defending Informal Land Rights
Because of our colonial and apartheid past, the majority of South Africans continue to hold land and occupy dwellings outside the formal property system. This includes people on communal land, farm workers and dwellers, people in informal settlements and backyard shacks, inner city buildings, and RDP houses with either no title or outdated titles. While legislation like the Prevention of Illegal Eviction Act, the Extension of Securities of Tenure Act and the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act provide protection against arbitrary displacement, they don’t tell people what they are entitled to do with and on their land – and often remain invisible to the State.
At its core, the Gwatyu case concerns the constitutional promise, in section 25(6), of security of tenure. It asks how people who have known only one piece of land as home, and who have occupied and worked that land for generations, but who were denied recognition of their land rights by a racist regime, can assert their land rights today. Can the state leave them in limbo?
Angelina Matsheke was born on Maties farm in the Gwatyu area in 1970 Her father was born on the same farm in 1930, the son of a farmworker. During his lifetime, the farms first belonged to white farmers for whom he and his parents worked, before being expropriated by the apartheid government in the 1970s to be incorporated in the Transkei. The white farmers left, but the farmworkers, including Angelina’s parents, stayed and worked the land. Between 1976 and 1990, Prime Minister Matanzima of the Transkei handed some of the farms over to well-connected lessees. Still, Angelina’s family and many like hers, stayed. With the advent of democracy, the land was transferred to the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development, who still holds it today.
The farm dwellers are today protected as beneficial occupiers in terms of the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act 31 of 1996 (IPILRA). While this protection has kept the State from arbitrarily evicting them, they have otherwise struggled to gain recognition as the holders of land rights similar to ownership rights over the Gwatyu area.
The situation is complicated by an unsuccessful land claim over the land by the neighbouring Amatshatshu traditional council. They were removed from the area when white farmers moved in in the 1870s – before the 1913 cut off date for restitution. Since their claim failed, they have continued to pursue it politically.
Faced with ongoing uncertainty and hostility from the State, Angeline and the other households occupying two of the Gwatyu farms, approached the High Court in Makhanda asking the Court to confirm that they hold informal rights to land under IPILRA. More importantly, they ask for an order that confirms what those rights mean: to possess, use, and enjoy the land as if they were owners, subject to communal rules. They also ask the Court to direct that their informal land rights be registered against the State’s title deeds. As real rights, they can and should be recorded, strengthening tenure security and preventing future disputes.
If successful, the Applicants will be the first of the millions of informal land rights holders in South Africa who are able to have their rights defined and recorded, giving them the tenure security that the Constitution promised.
Late Birth Registration
Advancing children’s rights through access to birth registration
In Cirangashane and Others vs the Minister of Home Affairs, the case concerns the right of every child born in South Africa to have their birth registered immediately or as soon as possible after they are born, no matter the status of their parents.
The South African Constitution entrenches the right of every child to a name and nationality from birth, a right which is met through the registration of their birth with the Department of Home Affairs. Without this a child’s Constitutional right to a name is denied, the risk of statelessness increases, and a child’s ability to obtain
education, health care, and social security is compromised. None of this is in the child’s best interests.
Despite the constitutional importance of birth registration, the current legal regime makes birth registration difficult for several reasons.
- The Department failing to implement the existing law to allow the registration of children where one parent is a citizen, permanent resident or refugee, but the other parent does not have a valid, unexpired passport, visa or permit
- The Regulations do not provide for the registration of a child where neither parent is a South African citizen, permanent resident or refugee, and one or both do not have a valid passport, visa or permit
- The Regulations do not provide for the late registration of children if neither parent is a South African citizen, permanent resident or refugee
- The Regulations do not provide for adults who were abandoned or orphaned, and do not have their parents’ documents, and were not registered as children, to register their own births
These exclusions contradict the Constitutional guarantee – supported by international law – that every child’s birth must be registered. It is the State’s obligation to facilitate registration, not to punish children for any mistakes by their parents.
Why land?
We use strategic litigation, research and law reform to protect communities’ rights to land and natural resources, strengthen accountable governance, and advance food sovereignty and climate justice so people can shape and sustain their own futures.
Our work in this area includes three focus areas:
Environmental and Climate Justice
We support communities to protect their land, livelihoods and ways of life from harmful development, including mining and extractive projects imposed without meaningful participation or consent. Our work recognises that land rights, cultural rights, and environmental protection are deeply connected, especially for communities whose spiritual and economic lives are tied to land and marine resources. Through a climate justice lens, we challenge decisions and policies that shift the costs of environmental harm and climate change onto communities already facing inequality and exclusion.
Food Security and Food Sovereignty
We work with small-scale fishers and farmers to protect their rights to produce, access and control their own food systems. This includes defending access to land, water and marine resources, and challenging laws and policies that threaten sustainable, community-based food production. Our focus is not only on food security, but on food sovereignty — ensuring communities have real power to determine how food is produced, shared and sustained in ways that are locally grounded, equitable and resilient.
Community Access to Land and Resources
We work to secure, protect and enforce communities’ rights to land and natural resources in both rural and urban contexts. This includes advancing equitable land redistribution and restitution, strengthening customary and communal land rights, and ensuring that governance structures such as traditional councils, CPAs, community trusts and municipalities are accountable and lawful. We also challenge unfair laws, practices and failures by the state that undermine people’s land tenure, dignity and ability to shape their own development.
Community Access to Land and Resources
We work to secure, protect and enforce communities’ rights to land and natural resources in both rural and urban contexts. This includes advancing equitable land redistribution and restitution, strengthening customary and communal land rights, and ensuring that governance structures such as traditional councils, CPAs, community trusts and municipalities are accountable and lawful. We also challenge unfair laws, practices and failures by the state that undermine people’s land tenure, dignity and ability to shape their own development.
Environmental and Climate Justice
We support communities to protect their land, livelihoods and ways of life from harmful development, including mining and extractive projects imposed without meaningful participation or consent. Our work recognises that land rights, cultural rights, and environmental protection are deeply connected, especially for communities whose spiritual and economic lives are tied to land and marine resources. Through a climate justice lens, we challenge decisions and policies that shift the costs of environmental harm and climate change onto communities already facing inequality and exclusion.
Food Security and Food Sovereignty
We work with small-scale fishers and farmers to protect their rights to produce, access and control their own food systems. This includes defending access to land, water and marine resources, and challenging laws and policies that threaten sustainable, community-based food production. Our focus is not only on food security, but on food sovereignty — ensuring communities have real power to determine how food is produced, shared and sustained in ways that are locally grounded, equitable and resilient.
Tribal Levies Case
Challenging unjust tribal levies in South Africa
The LRC represents communities to promote the equality, dignity and freedom of rural South Africans. This work aims to promote the accountability of local governance structures such as traditional councils and communal property associations, while securing the constitutional rights of the members of such communities. In doing so, our work focusses on promoting the recognition and protection of living customary law consistent with the Constitution.
One such case concerned the practice of traditional authorities of imposing levies or taxes on their community members. The practice started under colonial and apartheid times when ‘tribal’ leaders were empowered to levy these taxes on their people. While these taxes were applied arbitrarily, their effect was devastating: community members in arrears were barred from getting proof of address required for identity documents and grants, refused burial rights and even evicted. The practice amounted to a discriminatory ‘double taxation’ of rural people.
In 2015, we represented members of seven traditional communities in Limpopo Province and the Nkuzi Development Trust in challenging the constitutionality of tribal levies. Our clients asked the Court to declare section 25 of the Limpopo Traditional Leadership and Institutions Act 6 of 2005 inconsistent with the Constitution and invalid in as far as it allowed for the levying of taxes, because the Constitution only grants the power to tax to elected government structures.
The Applicants also asked the Court to declare that customary law does not provide for tribal taxes, but only for voluntary contributions from community members following community discussions.
In 2023, the Limpopo High Court found that traditional authorities were not constitutionally entitled to levy taxes and that section 25 of the Limpopo Act was indeed unconstitutional. The Court confirmed that customary law does not allow for compulsory and unilateral levies to be charged. The order required the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs to present a plan, to be approved by the Court, of how they will ensure that the order is communicated to communities to ensure that the practice is stopped. On 20 December 2025, the Constitutional Court confirmed that invalidity of s25 of the Limpopo Act, finding that traditional leaders and councils are not democratically elected legislative bodies and therefore cannot impose taxes under the Constitution. Neither can they impose taxes under customary law.
While the case was brought in Limpopo as the Limpopo Act was the only statute that allowed for levies, the finding about customary law and the constitutionality of these levies and taxes apply across the country.
The LRC continues to pursue the implementation of these orders.
The Shell Case
Supporting sustainable development and intergenerational equity: Wild Coast communities take on Shell and win
In December 2021 communities along the Wild Coast approached the Makhanda High Court to interdict petroleum giant Shell, and their partner, Impact Africa, from carrying out a seismic survey along the Wild Coast to explore for oil and gas before having consulted with the communities who stood to be most directly impacted. These communities have been fishing along that coastline for generations for their livelihood, but indeed also as an expression of their culture and custom. Yet, none of these communities were notified of the proposed survey at all until it was about to commence.
A seismic survey involves a vessel towing airguns which blast high-level, low-frequency sounds at the seabed at regular intervals to scan the ocean floor for potential oil and gas reserves. According to expert evidence provided by our clients, the noise levels that are released into the ocean from seismic surveys are rivalled only by undersea volcanic eruptions and undersea earthquakes. Dr Aaron Rice, an expert from Cornell University, told the court that to understand the profound impact of seismic surveys, it could be compared to marine organisms living through continuous thunderstorms lasting 4 to 6 months.
Such activity is likely to negatively impact marine life by inducing physiological stress and disrupting breeding patterns and migration paths. The cumulative impact on marine and bird life is not fully understood, the extensive research required to prove these harms are prohibitively expensive therefore rarely performed.
For the customary fishing communities of the Wild Coast, this could not only threaten their livelihoods; it would cause fundamental disruption to their cultural and spiritual beliefs. Their ancestors live in the sea: it is their ultimate resting place, the ‘great place’ of the departed souls. The sacred sites where these ancestral spirits re believed to reside are there where nature remains untouched. For this reason, the Wild Coast is home to many of these remaining sacred spots. Over generations these communities have conserved the land and the sea — but, they say, the land and the sea have also conserved them.
And yet, despite extensive public consultations when the Environmental Management Programme was prepared, no-one reached out to these communities, living on the doorstep of the proposed survey.
The communities also complained about the fact that Shell and Impact Africa did not prepare an Environmental Impact Assessment when applying for the exploration permit. An EIA requires far more detailed understanding of the cumulative environmental impacts of a proposed activity and, the communities said, would have forced the investors to consult meaningfully.
On 28 December 2021, the communities were successful in obtaining an interim interdict which prohibited Shell from carrying out the seismic survey pending the finalisation of a review of the granting of the permit in the first place. It was a hugely significant victory because Shell and Impact Africa had told the Court of the huge sums of money that they stood to lose should the communities win, arguing that this outweighed any prejudice that the communities could suffer. Shell argued that the Wild Coast is “poverty stricken” and that oil and gas exploration has “enormous potential economic and developmental value” for the area. But the court disagreed. Judge Bloem held that
“…the financial loss that Shell and Impact Africa are likely to suffer cannot be weighed against the infringement of the constitutional rights in question. Put differently, the anticipated financial loss to Shell and Impact Africa cannot justify the infringement of the applicants’ constitutional rights. The breach of those constitutional rights threaten the livelihoods and well-being of the applicant communities as well as their cultural practices and spiritual beliefs. Where constitutional rights are in issue, the balance of convenience favours the protection of those rights.”
In 2022, the Makhanda High Court found that the right was granted unlawfully because of the failure to notify and consult affected communities, and that relevant considerations, such as the communities’ right to food and livelihoods from the ocean and their spiritual and cultural rights, as well as the climate change impacts, were ignored. In addition, the Court found that the Minister failed to consider and comply with the requirements of the Integrated Coastal Management Act. It set aside the exploration right entirely. The SCA agreed, and the Constitutional Court then dismissed Shell and Impact’s attempt to appeal those findings.
The only question that remains, and that the Constitutional Court heard in September 2025, is whether the SCA was entitled to order that, despite the exploration right being unlawful, that the Minister could still decide to grant a renewal of that right. Judgment was reserved.
These cases offered an opportunity for coastal communities to reiterate that they reject top-down development imposed on them by multi-national corporations and facilitated by government. They assert the right to participate in development decisions that will affect their community and, in particular, the community’s resources.
Nonhle Mbuthuma, one of the applicants, said that this case is not just about Shell. It is about making sure that voices of rural communities are as important as the voices of the elites. It is about ensuring that the pursuit of profit does not override the protection of human rights.
Why education?
The realisation of the right to basic education, as laid out in the South African Constitution, stands to benefit generations of South African children, and alter the trajectory of the future of the country.
Our work in this programme includes:
We have worked with government to draft regulations and develop policy, and engaged with public servants to improve mechanisms for faster delivery of educational materials, furniture, transport and infrastructure.
We have successfully litigated in an attempt to overcome resource and administrative obstructions in the provision of quality education.
We have advocated for legislative reform and changes to education policy.
We have advocated for legislative reform and changes to education policy.
We have worked with government to draft regulations and develop policy, and engaged with public servants to improve mechanisms for faster delivery of educational materials, furniture, transport and infrastructure.
We have successfully litigated in an attempt to overcome resource and administrative obstructions in the provision of quality education.
Early Childhood Development
Holding the state accountable to fund early childhood care and protect every child’s right to learn and access nutrition.
The Legal Resources Centre represents the Friends of South Africa ECD Forum (FOSA), the KZN ECD Alliance, and three early childhood development (ECD) centres in KwaZulu-Natal in a constitutional challenge against the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education. The case arises from the Department’s ongoing failure to pay ECD subsidies consistently and timeously to qualifying centres across the province.
ECD subsidies are a critical source of funding for centres serving children from poor and marginalised communities. These funds are intended to support ECD services that are essential to the holistic development of young children, including adequate nutrition, and early learning that affected children would be deprived of otherwise.
However, over the past few years, many centres in KwaZulu-Natal have experienced significant delays and non-payment of subsidies, often going months without receiving funds and subsequently having to lower the quality of ECD services provided. This has had severe consequences for young children, including the reduction or removal of meals at centres, which is especially devastating for the many children who depend on ECD centres to provide their only meals for the day. Further repercussions include limited access to learning materials, deteriorating infrastructure which centres cannot afford to repair, and disruptions to stable caregiving environments.
The litigation was instituted in two parts. In Part A, heard on 26 May 2025, the Pietermaritzburg High Court ordered the Department to pay all outstanding subsidies owed to the three applicant centres. While this resulted in slightly improved payment to those centres, the broader systemic problem persisted across the province.
Part B of the case seeks to address this province-wide breakdown. The applicants are asking the Court to recognise ECD as a constitutional right, drawing on existing rights to nutrition, basic education, dignity, equality, and the best interests of the child. They argue that the Department’s failure to administer subsidies properly infringes these rights and undermines a crucial developmental stage of children’s lives.
In addition to declaratory relief, the applicants seek structural remedies to ensure accountability. This includes an order compelling the Department to file a comprehensive report identifying all subsidised ECD centres in KwaZulu-Natal, detailing the amounts owed to each centre, and setting out how and when these arrears will be paid. The applicants further seek an order directing that all outstanding subsidies be paid within a specified timeframe.
This case aims not only to secure immediate payment of outstanding subsidies, but also to establish clear and enforceable obligations on the state to ensure consistent delivery of ECD services. By seeking recognition of a constitutional right to ECD, the litigation has the potential to strengthen legal protections for young children and provide a foundation for future accountability in the sector.
The Beaumont Primary School Case
Advancing equality for transgender learners in schools
At the end of 2023, the LRC launched the WM obo OM and Another v the School Governing Body of Beaumont Primary matter in the Equality Court. The applicants in this matter are the parents of a transgender boy (OM) who attended Beaumont Primary School in Somerset West, Cape Town. In 2022 OM enrolled in Grade 1 at the school. OM had begun his transition prior to his enrolment. Therefore, his parents had engaged with the principal prior to his enrolment in relation to accommodating OM’s use the boys’ bathroom and his wearing the boys’ swimming uniform. The principal accommodated OM who did not encounter any issues at the school.With the arrival of the new principal, however, OM has faced multiple forms of discrimination based on his gender identity. He was no longer permitted to use his preferred bathroom and preferred swimming uniform. The school environment was no longer safe for OM, and he has since left the school. Nonetheless, his parents have decided to continue pursuing the case so that no other learner experiences the same exclusion, discrimination, and harassment.
Beyond the relief sought for the applicants, the broader relief is aimed at directing the Western Cape Education Department and the Department of Basic Education to promulgate regulations to ensure that transgender and gender-diverse learners can use the bathrooms and wear the hairstyles and school and sports uniforms that correspond with their gender identity. The LRC believes that this case has the potential to be groundbreaking in establishing the foundation for an inclusive schooling environment for transgender and gender diverse-learners.
On 26 May 2025 there was a hearing about preliminary issues regarding whether the court can make the determination of whether discrimination occurred or not given that OM has left the school and the country. We are still waiting for the court’s judgment on these preliminary issues.
Right to Read Campaign
Change how the story ends
The LRC is a co-founder of the Right to Read Campaign (#R2R), which aims to hold government accountable for doing everything practically possible to ensure learners can read for meaning by the age of 10.
The Right to Read (R2R) Campaign is a broad-based, national coalition of civil society organisations, literacy experts, researchers, and education stakeholders committed to addressing South Africa’s foundational literacy crisis through systemic, evidence-based reform. The campaign brings together leading institutions in the education and human rights sectors, including the South African Human Rights Commission, SECTION27, the Legal Resources Centre, Equal Education, the Equal Education Law Centre, and the Centre for Child Law, among others. United by a shared purpose, the R2R Campaign seeks to ensure that every child in South Africa acquires the essential skill of reading for meaning in the early years of schooling.
The R2R Campaign’s work is grounded in the constitutional right to basic education, as enshrined in Section 29(1)(a) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 and Section 28(2) of the Constitution affirms that a child’s best interests are of paramount importance in every matter concerning the child.
At the centre of the R2R Campaign is the call for the development and adoption of binding national regulations for the foundation phase of schooling. These regulations are intended to provide clear, enforceable standards to guide teaching and learning in the early grades. Specifically, the campaign advocates for regulations that address four critical pillars, commonly referred to as the “4 Ts” – Texts, Time Teacher Training and Testing. These pillars represent the essential components required to support effective literacy instruction and improved learner outcomes, and together, they provide a coherent and practical framework for strengthening early-grade literacy across the education system.
The campaign envisions a South Africa in which every child is equipped with the foundational literacy skills necessary to realise their full potential, participate meaningfully in society, and exercise their rights with dignity and agency.
For more information about the campaign’s work, resources, and ongoing advocacy, you can visit the R2R website at www.righttoread.org.za and subscribe to our newsletter: mailchi.mp/righttoread/sign-up
Makana Circle of Unity
Challenging the Systemic Underfunding of Eastern Cape Schools
Every year, the Minister of Basic Education sets a per-learner funding allocation target in terms of the National Norms and Standards for School Funding (NNSSF). The per-learner allocation is supposed cover the costs of learners’ textbooks and LTSM for the year, and contribute towards the maintenance of their schools. Critically, for learners in quintiles 1 to 3 schools, or “no-fee paying schools”, this amount is not supplemented by school fees. It is all that a school receives to cover the costs of educating their learners. For the current financial year, the target for learners in quintiles 1 to 3 schools is R 1 835 per learner, in quintile 4 schools the target is R 919 and in quintile 5 schools, the target is R 315.
However, since 2020, the Eastern Cape Education Department (“ECDOE”) has consistently been funding learners below the national per target, some years allocating learners in the Eastern Cape close to only half of what their peers in other provinces receive. In 2023, after repeated attempts at engagement with the ECDOE on behalf of several schools in Makhanda, the ECDOE announced that it would be funding learners at the national per leaner target. Significantly, no mention was made of any plan to provide schools with backpay for the years during which they
were unfunded. Furthermore, when schools received their new budgets for the year, they discovered for the first time that the ECDOE would be retaining 33.75% of each learners’ per learner allocation to fund a newly established Provincial NNSSF.
Acting on behalf of the Makhanda Circle of Unity, a Makhanda-based civil society organisation, and three schools in Makhanda, the LRC launched proceedings in 2023 seeking to review, set aside and declare the ECDOE’s decision to retain a percentage of schools’ per learner allocations for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 financial years unlawful, and to substitute the ECDOE’s decision to do so, ensuring that all schools in the province are back paid their full per learner allocation.
The application also seeks to declare the ECDOE’s continued underfunding of schools in the province without a clear joint plan with the Department of Basic Treasury, Provincial Treasury and National Treasury to fund schools at the per-learner target as soon as possible in unconstitutional and unlawful. Alternatively, should the NNSSF allow such entrenched underfunding, the application seeks to have the National Norms and Standards for School Funding declared unconstitutional , reviewed and set aside.
This case marks the first time the courts will have to squarely engage with certain key provisions of the National Norms and Standards for School Funding which have facilitated historic underfunding in certain provinces across the country. If successful, this application will provide millions of rands in back pay to schools in desperate need, and remedy shortcomings in the regulatory framework that facilitate and entrench inequitable funding practices between provinces.
Why digital justice?
The digital world shapes how people access information, opportunities, and public life, yet South Africa’s legal framework has not kept pace, leaving uncertainty about how the Constitution of South Africa applies to powerful technology companies.
Democratising big tech is about closing this gap by ensuring the digital space is governed in line with constitutional values, so that people’s rights are protected and technology serves the public rather than undermines it.
Our work in this area includes:
Closing regulatory gaps in digital and tech law
Developing rights respecting digital law and policy
Building global coalitions for tech accountability
Protecting people from harmful digital technologies
Protecting people from harmful digital technologies
Closing regulatory gaps in digital and tech law
Building global coalitions for tech accountability
Developing rights respecting digital law and policy
Plugging the Regulatory Gaps
South Africa’s digital laws have not kept pace, leaving gaps that expose people to harm and require urgent reform grounded in the Constitution of South Africa.
Over the past three years, through our research and engagement with partners across the globe, we are now acutely aware that the South African legal framework is not equipped to deal with and manage the rapid development of the digital and tech ecosystem. Every individual in the Republic is bound by the South African Bill of Rights into a human rights respecting sociolegal contract. However, the application of the Bill of Rights to multinational tech corporations and the services they provide to the South African public is unfortunately still an open question.
The Digital Justice team at the LRC is conducting a thorough review of South African law and will assist the relevant stakeholders in the Republic’s legislative bodies to start asking the right questions.
There are many gaps in our privacy, access to information/data and information integrity, surveillance, cybercrimes, and public service/content broadcasting laws. These gaps create a digital ecosystem that inadvertently facilitates tech harm onto the South African public. The process of plugging these gaps must be escalated and the LRC plans to put this on the Parliamentary agenda in the very near future.
Rights respecting law and policy
Ensuring South Africa’s digital laws uphold the Constitution of South Africa by holding tech companies accountable and placing people at the centre of regulation.
Once we know that Parliament are ready to start plugging the gaps, the LRC are standing equally ready to ensure that law and policy makers are informed and assisted in developing a rights respecting digital legal framework.
The goal is to facilitate the creation of an amended legal system that addresses the harmful impacts of a currently unregulated digital and tech ecosystem. It is about bringing the Bill of Rights online and within tech. The law must emphasise that tech corporations cannot prioritize their profit margins over the livelihoods of people.
It is not a question about whether the tech corporations are bound by our law but rather when South Africa will adapt our law to hold them accountable. Our work will hopefully make that happen sooner rather than later. The Digital Justice team will use every avenue available to us to promote a rights respecting basis for any legislation, regulation or policy that is proposed by government.
Collaborating for a better Digital World
Working with global partners to hold technology companies and governments accountable and to strengthen protections for people in the digital space.
The Digital Justice team is a part of five major tech advocacy coalitions whose goals are to advocate for a safer and more secure digital ecosystem on the African continent and the world at large.
- The LRC as a member of the African Internet Rights Alliance shares the mission to undertake collective interventions and execute strategic initiatives to promote privacy and data protection, affordability and access to the internet, access to information and freedoms of assembly, expression and the press in Africa.
- In 2025, the LRC co-hosted the inaugural Global Tech Litigation Task Team convening where it was resolved that members would assist each other through collaborative litigation efforts across the globe to hold tech companies and governments accountable in their member’s jurisdictions.
- As a member of the Global Encryption Coalition the LRC promotes and defends encryption, which safeguards the personal security of billions of people and the national security of countries around the world.
- The LRC helped convene and continues to uphold the goals of the Global Coalition of Tech Justice, which exists to create a world in which worldwide tech platforms and technologies serve the public good and uphold the dignity of all peoples. Fundamentally this Coalition’s goal is to hold tech corporations accountable for the pivotal role they play during election periods across the globe.
- Finally, the LRC is a long-standing member of the International Network of Civil Liberty Organisations’ Surveillance and Digital Rights focus area. Through this focus area we research, educate and litigate for the protection and enhancement of our rights and freedoms in the digital age at international and local levels. Additionally, advocating for strong oversight, transparency and public disclosure about the way state and private actors alike access and use our personal information.
The tech and digital sector span the entire globe and operates within and out of many different continents and jurisdictions. Recognising this the Digital Justice team works hard to maintain and use these collaborative relationships in order to ensure worldwide accountability within the digital ecosystem.
Empowering and protecting the public from harmful tech
Protecting people from digital harm through litigation that challenges surveillance, discrimination, and technology driven violence.
Finally, the Digital Justice team have identified a few key areas within the digital and tech ecosystem that are of particular concern and are developing a number of litigation strategies that address and respond to –
- The increased surge in tech facilitated violence against vulnerable groups such as migrants, women and children.
- The rapid development of AI and data storage infrastructure in South Africa
- The harmful effects of discriminatory algorithms on individuals and groups in the region
- The legal gaps that facilitate unlawful surveillance of individuals or groups due to existing weak encryption law.
This list of litigation avenues is not exhaustive and the LRC recognise that with an everchanging digital world that other and new issues may arise as time passes.
We therefore encourage the public to get in contact with us whether they feel that the above issues are relevant to them or if they are experiencing a completely different issue related to the digital world.
So let us make it a safer digital world, together!
Why gender-based violence?
We use strategic litigation and law reform to strengthen protection for survivors, improve accountability where the law is poorly implemented, and ensure the justice system properly recognises the realities of abuse, including in cases involving self defence.
Our work in this area includes:
Battered Woman Syndrome
Sexual Corruption
Sexual Corruption
Our goal is to secure legal recognition of sexual corruption as corruption, or as a standalone offence, and to drive accountability by supporting better investigation and prosecution practices that protect survivors rather than treating them as complicit.
Battered Woman Syndrome
Our goal is to ensure courts properly recognise the realities of prolonged abuse by integrating battered woman syndrome and related expert evidence into how cases are decided and sentenced, so guilt, self defence and culpability are assessed with full context and fairness.
Sexual Corruption
Sexual corruption or sextortion is the exchange of entrusted public or institutional power for sexual favours.
Across South Africa, too many women and young people are forced into an impossible choice: submit to sexual demands or lose access to something they need. A job. A bursary. Housing. Water. A permit. This abuse of power, known as sexual corruption, is not simply misconduct. It is the exchange of entrusted public or institutional power for sexual favours. And it is happening in spaces where people are already vulnerable. It happens where NEED meets POWER.
As part of our gender-based violence work, the Legal Resources Centre has become increasingly concerned about the prevalence of sexual corruption. Research and community-based evidence show that young women between the ages of 18 and 24 are most at risk, followed closely by women aged 25 and 34. These are women trying to study, work, build families and survive in a difficult economy. Instead, many are confronted with gatekeepers who demand sex in exchange for access to basic opportunities and services.
Despite its widespread occurrence, sexual corruption is not explicitly criminalised under the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act (PRECCA). This legal gap has serious consequences. Survivors may struggle to have their cases properly investigated or prosecuted. In some instances, they even face the risk of being treated as complicit rather than as victims of coercion. Silence, fear of retaliation, stigma and uncertainty in the law continue to shield perpetrators and deepen harm. We believe this must change.
Our work focuses on advancing the recognition of sexual corruption as a form of corruption, or as a standalone offence, under PRECCA. We are raising awareness through public engagements, research and dialogue so that communities understand what sexual corruption is and why it matters. Naming the harm is the first step toward ending it.
We are also engaging with the Sexual Offences and Community Affairs Unit within the National Prosecuting Authority in structured dialogue to address the practical challenges and opportunities in prosecuting sexual corruption. This includes examining how existing corruption and sexual offences frameworks are being used, where they fall short and what reform may be required to ensure accountability without prosecuting the survivors. By working toward legal recognition, accountability and institutional reform, we aim to ensure that survivors are protected, perpetrators are held accountable, and public power is exercised lawfully and ethically.
“At its core, this is a human rights issue. Sexual corruption violates dignity, equality and bodily autonomy. It exploits economic vulnerability and entrenches gender inequality. No one should have to trade their body for access to education, employment or basic services.”
– Sipesihle Mguga, GBV Programme Co-Lead
Women Who Kill Their Abuser
Women who kill or battered women syndrome refers to women who kill an intimate partner who has subjected them to prolonged abuse, often in circumstances shaped by trauma, fear, coercive control, and the failure of support systems to provide effective protection.
A concerning trend has emerged in South Africa: women who experience prolonged domestic abuse, and who have not been effectively protected by the system, sometimes kill their abusers as a last resort. When they are prosecuted, the history of abuse and institutional failure is too often sidelined in the assessment of guilt and sentence. In doing so, the legal system risks compounding that abuse rather than delivering justice.
Our work focuses on changing that. We want to advocate for the proper recognition and integration of Battered Woman Syndrome (BWS) as a critical factor in the adjudication of cases involving women who kill their abusers. This is not about creating a “special defence” or placing anyone above the law. It is about ensuring that courts fully understand the psychological, social and coercive realities of prolonged abuse when assessing intention, imminence, reasonableness and culpability.
In many of the cases we have encountered, the pattern is disturbingly similar. A woman reports repeated physical violence, threats, economic control and isolation. She may have sought help from family, community members, or even law enforcement often without meaningful protection. The abuse escalates. Eventually, in a moment shaped by fear, trauma, and a belief that there is no safe exit, she kills her abuser. When the matter reaches court, the focus narrows to the final act. The years of terror that preceded it fade into the background. This approach is legally and morally insufficient.
Battered Woman Syndrome, properly understood, assists courts in contextualizing a survivor’s state of mind. It explains why leaving is not always a realistic option, why danger is not confined to a single explosive moment, and why a threat can be perceived as imminent even if it does not fill neatly within traditional formulations of private defence. Without this context, courts risk applying legal tests in a vacuum, detached from the lived realities of gender-based violence.
Our aim is to develop jurisprudence that requires judicial officers to meaningfully engage with the history of abuse when adjudicating these matters. That includes the admission and careful consideration of expert evidence, a nuanced understanding of coercive control, and sentencing approaches that reflect diminished moral blameworthiness where prolonged abuse is proved.
At its core, this work is about fairness. The law must be capable of recognizing the difference between calculated violence and survival shaped by years of harm. A justice system committed to dignity, equality and substantive fairness cannot ignore the context in which these tragedies occur.