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The Constitutional Court has admitted Abahlali baseMjondolo as amicus curiae in a case due to be heard on 12 February 2014 in the Constitutional Court.

The case -  Zulu and 389 Others v eThekwini Municipality and Others (Zulu) - concerns the constitutional validity of an order granted to the KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Human Settlements and Public Works on 28 March 2013. The order permits and obliges eThekwini Municipality to “prevent any persons from invading and/or occupying and/or undertaking the construction of any structures” on specified land within the municipality’s area of jurisdiction, and to “remove any materials placed by any persons upon” that land. Abahlali has thousands of members with an interest in any case dealing with the validity of the MEC order.

• Application for leave to intervene in Constitutional Court: notice of motion here and founding affidavit (4 December 2013) here.
• Read more on the case here.

In January 2014 Adv Dumisa Ntsebeza SC became the newest member of SERI's Board of Directors. Since October 2012 Adv Ntsebeza has represented, before the Marikana Commission of Inquiry, 36 families of striking miners who were killed by the police at Marikana in August 2012.

Adv Ntsebeza was admitted as an attorney in 1984, practicing in the Eastern Cape, mainly in the area of human rights. He represented a number of political prisoners throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1995 he was appointed one of the Commissioners in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). He is a founder of South African National Association of Democratic Lawyers and served as its President. He also served as president of South Africa's Black Lawyers Association. In 2000, Adv Ntsebeza was called to the Bar in Cape Town, where he took Silk in 2005, becoming the first African to be conferred Silk status in the history of the Cape Bar. He has practised in the Johannesburg Bar since 2008, specialising in Constitutional and Administrative Law, Labour Law, Mining Law and Land Law.

On 12 December 2013 the Pretoria High Court set aside the sale-in-execution of a mortgaged home belonging to a Soweto family. While the family had paid the entire amount due to the bank, it sold their home on public auction anyway. By SERI’s calculations (which FNB did not dispute) between the date on which summons was issued and the date on which the sale took place the Thwalas paid about R500 more than the total value of the default judgment, plus interest and other payments to FNB.

SERI lawyers argued that this rendered the sale void. The court agreed. Acting Judge Van Niekerk set aside the sale declaring that the default judgment had been satisfied before the sale in execution took place and that there was “no lawful basis for FNB to proceed, as it did, with the sale in execution".

• Read the full SERI press release (13 December 2013) here.
• Judgment (12 December 2013) here.
• Read more on the case here.

In November 2013 a new book entitled Socio-Economic Rights in South Africa: Symbols or Substance? was published by Cambridge University Press. SERI senior researcher Jackie Dugard is one of the book's editors, together with Malcolm Langford, Ben Cousins and Tshepo Madlingozi.

This important book focuses on a range of socio-economic rights and national trends in law and political economy. The book's authors show how socio-economic rights have influenced the development of civil society discourse and action in South Africa. The evidence suggests that some strategies have achieved material and political impact but this is conditional on the nature of the claim, degree of mobilization and alliance building, and underlying constraints.

Download the flyer for the book here.

• J Dugard and S Wilson's chapter "Constitutional Jurisprudence: The First and Second Waves".
• J Dugard's chapter “Urban Basic Services in South Africa: Rights, Reality and Resistance".