Its failure to protect artisanal miners in Stilfontein shows that it is toothless and needs an overhaul to address structural weaknesses. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) recently released four major reports for the 2024-25 financial year: the International and Regional Human Rights Report, the Section 184(3) Report, the Report on the State of Human Rights in South Africa and the Monitoring of Recommendations Report.
The commission itself frames them as part of a new chapter, a turning point where it will no longer allow its reports to “gather dust” but will begin to track follow-up and hold duty-bearers accountable.
Yet, when measured against the commission’s record in practice, particularly its failure to act decisively during one of the most significant human rights crises in recent memory at Stilfontein, these promises are difficult to take at face value. The gap between aspiration and action remains stark — an institution that speaks the language of renewal but retreats when lives are on the line.
Stilfontein: a missed test of resolve
In Stilfontein last year, nearly 100 artisanal miners lost their lives after being trapped underground when the South African Police Service closed mine shafts and blocked the lowering of food, water and medicine. Community organisations, led by Mining Affected Communities United in Action (Macua) and others, rushed to court, raised funds and even used ropes and pulley systems to deliver supplies, retrieve bodies and to save lives.
The SAHRC, however, retreated. It allowed the state to bully it. Its monitors were denied access to the site. It did not approach the courts to enforce urgent humanitarian relief. It failed to use its constitutional powers to secure redress at the very moment when rights to life and dignity were being extinguished.
Despite the commission’s promises to the community at the time, almost a year later, no findings have been issued. The commission’s promised hearings have not sat. Given its history of delayed reporting, there is every chance that a formal report will only surface another year from now, long after the urgency of the crisis has passed and the pain of families has been dulled by time. This does not reflect an institution intent on turning a new page. It reflects an institution that observes and records but does not protect.
An institution serious about change would have recognised that Stilfontein was a critical test case, an opportunity to show that lessons had been learned from past delays. It would have prioritised urgent hearings, delivered interim findings, or used its constitutional powers to secure immediate relief. Instead, the commission has followed its old pattern: announcing inquiries, allowing deadlines to slip and retreating into long processes that produce reports long after their impact has been lost.
A hollow ‘new era’
The SAHRC’s Monitoring of Recommendations Report is unusually candid. It acknowledges that, for years, the commission issued reports that “simply gathered dust”, that recommendations were not followed up and that, at times, the SAHRC has been “running in circles, chasing its tail”. The report promises a “new era” of systematic follow-up, suggesting that future litigation and campaigns will be informed by monitoring outcomes.
This self-reflection is welcome. In fact, it is worth appreciating that the commission has finally heard what civil society organisations like Macua have been saying for more than a decade — that hearings and reports mean little without redress and that monitoring without enforcement is not protection. The SAHRC now concedes this point in its own words.
But the promise of a new era rings hollow. The commission has not explained how new monitoring systems will translate into better outcomes. It has not said how it will overcome the structural weaknesses of an institution where over 90% of its budget is spent on salaries and staff costs, leaving very little flexibility for strategic litigation or urgent interventions. According to its 2024-25 budget, the SAHRC received just over R200 million in public funds, yet the overwhelming bulk goes to internal overheads rather than direct protection.
Nor has the commission explained how it will address the reality that its preferred method, diplomatic engagements with government departments, state agencies and duty-bearers, has consistently proved to be ineffective. Without a shift in strategy, “better monitoring” risks becoming just another layer of paperwork, producing new reports that will in time join the dusty shelves of past reports.
Selective litigation, skewed priorities
The SAHRC points to its Equality Court case against Renaldo Gouws as evidence of its willingness to litigate. That case, dealing with hate speech, is important in principle. But it also highlights the deeper problem.
If the commission is willing to go to court over offensive speech but not when hundreds of lives are imminently at risk, then its structural and strategic priorities are badly skewed. This selective use of litigation suggests that the commission is more prepared to defend rights symbolically than to protect lives practically.
For years, organisations such as Macua have been calling for the commission to expand its understanding of its mandate, to embrace litigation and to place redress at the heart of its work. These calls have often been met with silence, defensiveness or delay.
Macua’s most recent report, Legislating Against the Constitution, documents how the government’s draft amendments to the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act have systematically ignored the SAHRC’s own findings and recommendations from its 2016 and 2018 mining hearings. The commission’s detailed reports called for stronger community consent mechanisms, enforceable social and labour plans and the formalisation of artisanal mining. Yet the draft Bill retreats from these constitutional principles, showing that even when the SAHRC invests years in hearings and investigations, its work can be sidelined without consequence.
International bodies echo the same concerns
The SAHRC’s own International and Regional Human Rights Report shows that international bodies share the very concerns raised by communities. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child urged South Africa to end discrimination against poor and rural children, address hunger and preventable deaths and, tellingly, called for the SAHRC itself to be better resourced.
The SAHRC has an essential role to play in our democracy. Communities do not want it weakened; they want it strengthened. But to achieve this, we need a collective dialogue on the failings of the SAHRC and what must be done to ensure that human lives enjoy the same constitutional protections that state resources do.
It is unfathomable that the Public Protector, an institution designed to protect the resources of the state, wields greater powers than the Human Rights Commission, which was designed to protect the lives and dignity of people. The Public Protector can subpoena, compel evidence and issue binding findings that must be implemented. The SAHRC, by contrast, has mostly advisory powers, despite its mandate being no less vital. This imbalance must be addressed if we are to take seriously the promise of the Constitution.
Christopher Rutledge is the executive director of the Macua-Wamua Advice Office, a not-for-profit organisation that works with Mining Affected Communities United in Action, a social movement that organises and mobilises marginalised and mining-affected communities across the country.