Section27
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Mission Statement
SECTION27 is a well-established and widely respected public interest law centre that seeks to achieve substantive equality and social justice in South Africa. Guided by the principles and values in the Constitution, SECTION27 uses the law through litigation, advocacy, legal literacy, research and community mobilisation to advance socio-economic rights, in particular the right to access health care services and the right to basic education. SECTION27 aims to achieve systemic change and accountability to ensure the dignity and equality of everyone and to contribute to a society that is stable, democratic, and based on constitutional principles.
About This Cause
SECTION27 has two thematic areas: 1. The right to access quality health care services We address access to quality health care services by tackling the structural issues that hinder the health system’s ability to realise the right to access health care services; targeting health rights violations that impact the most vulnerable groups; and holding relevant roleplayers to account. To this end we have engaged with the National Health Insurance law-making process since its inception, work on health financing and corruption through budget advocacy and collaboration with the Special Investigating Unit on health corruption, and work on access to medicine barriers nationally and globally. We focus on the reproductive health rights of women, including access to abortion; the rights of mental health care users; the rights of migrants; the rights of people living with HIV; and the rights of people needing emergency medical treatment. 2. The right to basic education SECTION27’s overall objective is to continue to focus on the immediately realisable nature of the right to basic education in order to improve quality in areas of the basic education system. We seek to give effect to the right to basic education for South Africa’s poorest learners so as to realise their full potential. SECTION27’s focus is on basic education provisioning (including sanitation and infrastructure); removing barriers to education for vulnerable groups of learners (including migrant learners and learners with disabilities); school safety (including protecting learners from sexual violence and corporal punishment); developing the legal framework for basic education (including through submissions on the Basic Education Laws Amendment [BELA] Bill and on the fiscal budget); legal literacy (including through trainings in schools, the development of the Basic Education Handbook); and joint civil society work on the right to read. Budgeting for socio-economic rights cuts across both thematic areas and brings unique added value to our advocacy and litigation. SECTION27 further aims to research and address the intersection of climate change and gender justice, including the rights of people with diverse sexual orientation, gender identity, expression and sex characteristics, across both thematic areas. Our use of the law through rights education, legal advocacy and litigation itself strengthens democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law. OUR METHODOLOGY SECTION27’s implementation approach includes using the law through litigation, advocacy, legal literacy, research and community mobilisation to achieve access to healthcare services and basic education. Much of this is done through precedent-setting litigation where cases build important jurisprudence and strengthen government accountability. Most cases are developed in communities where SECTION27 has a presence, where rights violations are particularly severe; SECTION27 conducts workshops with learners, communities, AIDS councils, school governing bodies, clinic committees and others to increase rights awareness. The aim of our litigation and supporting policy advocacy work is to improve the realisation of health and education rights on a national level. All of SECTION27’s cases and campaigns are based on evidence obtained through a combination of desktop research (legal research and budget research); rights violations complaints made to SECTION27’s advice office; information obtained by field staff from community members and learners; and information provided by partners and coalitions. SECTION27 adds value to the social justice sector by engaging with stakeholders, providing thought leadership on the issues that we work on, and engaging the media to influence the public narrative on human rights issues more broadly. We ensure that our interventions are rooted in the needs of communities through our community engagements and coalition building. OUR IMPACT We aim to have an impact on the lives of our primary beneficiaries by using our strategies to address and breakdown systemic barriers to accessing health care services and basic education. The impact is direct and indirect, including assisting adolescents and young women to access sexual and reproductive health services such as abortion services, contraceptives, ARVs, as well as influencing policy change to make such access real for vulnerable groups, including migrants. Our litigation is impactful both for any individual clients, but for all others in that group such as in the Life Esidimeni matter, which is focused on users of mental health care services. Although we do assist individual members of the public who approach us for assistance, a guiding question that drives our work is to what extent our involvement can result in systemic improvement, particularly in the public health and education systems. Our primary beneficiaries are all users of the public health and education systems. SECTION27 has, together with partners, achieved legal, material and political impact from its litigation and advocacy successes in the recent past, including but not limited to: Successfully fighting for the reinstatement of the National School Nutrition Programme for all 9 million eligible learners in all grades during the COVID-19 pandemic. The High Court made a landmark judgment, affirming that the Department of Basic Education (DBE) was responsible for ensuring that learners have access to sufficient food as part of its obligations to realise the right to food and the right to education. Successfully representing the family of Michael Komape, a 5-year old boy who drowned in a school pit latrine in Limpopo. The Supreme Court of Appeal awarded damages to the family and ordered the DBE to provide an audit and plan to address the school sanitation crisis. As a direct result of our rigorous monitoring of the court order, as of January 2023, 770 of the 2092 planned sanitation projects in Limpopo have been completed and 92 schools have been provided with mobile toilets. Beyond the courtroom, SECTION27's SRHR initiative reached 961 learners in 2022, educating them on essential topics from teen pregnancy to GBV. Our champion skills workshops trained 12 learners in radio and community reporting, equipping the next generation with transferrable skills and essential knowledge. SECTION27 and BlindSA successfully challenging the constitutionality of the Copyright Act of 1978 in the High Court, to the extent that it hinders the availability of accessibly formatted materials for persons who are blind or partially sighted. The court judgment provides a vast and immediate improvement to access to books in accessible formats for people who are blind. SECTION27’s tenacity in negotiating with the Gauteng Treasury and Gauteng Department of Health has resulted in the allocation of R784 million for surgical and radiation oncology backlogs. SECTION27 recently obtained a groundbreaking court order that not only directs that all pregnant and lactating women and children under six, regardless of their nationality or immigration status are entitled to free health services at all public health facilities, but requires government to inform both health facilities and patients across the country of the order and to periodically report back to court on its compliance with the order.