Being able to vote for our leaders is what it means to live in a democracy. Yet the Eastern Cape government tried to block a rural Eastern Cape community from electing their leader. Yesterday the community won an important court victory. Wilmien Wicomb of the Legal Resources Centre explains.
Wilmien Wicomb
Analysis | 19 August 2015
The South Gauteng High Court has delivered a judgment that promotes openness and helps people injured at work, or the families of people killed at work, realise their rights.
Tim Fish Hodgson
Analysis | 17 August 2015
Three years ago on this day, the police shot dead 34 miners at Marikana. Here are some of the articles we've published since then that, sadly, remain current and relevant.
GroundUp Staff
Analysis | 16 August 2015
Constitutional Court judge Edwin Cameron delivered the Bram Fischer Memorial Lecture at Oxford University on 16 June. While much longer than pieces we normally carry, the speech is relevant to vital current issues and we present it here in full.
Edwin Cameron
Analysis | 17 June 2015
Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The court’s prosecutor alleges that al-Bashir has "criminal responsibility for the crime of genocide … killing members of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups … causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of those groups, and deliberately inflicting on those groups conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in part”.
GroundUp Staff
Analysis | 15 June 2015
Human rights lawyers have been engaged for ten years in a bid to secure massive damages for former gold miners who suffer from silicosis and TB. As the case heads for the courts, the mining industry is scrambling to offer its own and much less comprehensive solution.
Pete Lewis
Analysis | 11 June 2015
In a feature titled The Counted, The Guardian is keeping track of the number of people killed by police action in the United States. “US police kill more in days than other countries do in years,” says The Guardian. We wondered how the police in South Africa compare.
GroundUp Staff
Analysis | 10 June 2015
To deploy the army is an exceptional measure. It implies that the police force is unable to control a situation that threatens a country’s security and well-being.
Lara Wallis
Analysis | 4 June 2015
For 21 years, the Minister of Finance has tabled budgets announcing that large amounts of money will go to social services that are meant to improve the lives of the poor. But, even the staunchest government supporter would agree that the country has not derived full benefit from this money. Year after year the Auditor General, Public Protector and others report on inefficiency, poor accounting and corruption in all categories of public spending.
Albert van Zyl
Analysis | 27 February 2015
President Zuma's State of the Nation Address was thin on detail. Here are a list of questions that we suggest Members of Parliament could ask, so that people living in South Africa will be better informed.
GroundUp Staff
Analysis | 13 February 2015
Josh Budlender and Johan Lorenzen argue that the reasons given by the University of Cape Town (UCT) for the minimum wage of outsourced workers in 2015 do not make sense.
Josh Budlender and Johan Lorenzen
Analysis | 8 December 2014
The Constitution and legislation protect vulnerable people from being evicted into homelessness. But for 14 shack-dwellers in Walmer Estate this is exactly what is happening, writes Daneel Knoetze.
Daneel Knoetze
Analysis | 3 November 2014
A credibility crisis in South Africa’s independent media is unfolding this week, writes Patrick Bond.
Patrick Bond
Analysis | 28 October 2014
The Adjustment Budget got very little coverage last week, but it is vital to understand it, explain Carlene van der Westhuizen and Thokozile Madonko.
Carlene van der Westhuizen and Thokozile Madonko
Analysis | 27 October 2014
Palls of thick smoke hung over the N2 mid-September 2014, after protesters from the farming town of Grabouw, some 20 kilometres from Gordon’s Bay, barricaded the national highway with burning tyres. Rubber bullets flew and canisters of teargas exploded as the police met protesters head on.
Mandy de Waal
Analysis | 30 September 2014
When the high court upheld an application by Andiswe Dwenga against the defence force last week, it wasn’t just a victory for HIV activists: it was also a victory for the rule of law.
Carmel Rickard
Analysis | 29 September 2014