This year the Community Law Centre at the University of the Western Cape celebrates 20 years of activism, protection of human rights and an ongoing passion to see law, equality and justice afforded to every citizen of the global village.
The Community Law Centre was borne out of the struggles of the 1980s and many of the original force behind its creation — such as Dullah Omar, Brigitte Mabandla and Zola Skweyiya — filled some of the highest positions in South African leadership.
From the heady days of being intimately involved in negotiating a constitutional settlement in 1993, the Centre’s activities moved towards assisting in the transformation of the legal order befitting the new democratic state, giving form and content to the constitutional framework.
In 1994 Professor Nico Steytler was appointed as director and Julia Sloth-Nielsen and Sandy Liebenberg as researchers. Today the Centre conducts high quality and cutting-edge research in jurisprudence and assists in developing policies and legislation for organs of state such as state departments, provincial and local government.
It has worked with the South African Human Rights Commission and the South African Law Reform Commission. In addition, its work focuses on informing public debate on law reform and providing education and training for state officials, civil society and students. It builds capacity in organs of state and civil society by disseminating accessible materials.
The Centre is committed to producing high-quality peer-reviewed publications. Over the years, the Centre’s researchers have produced numerous books, chapters in books, articles in local and international accredited journals, and research reports.
In the last two years, the Centre’s staff have been responsible, either individually or as co-authors, for more than half of the Law Faculty’s publications.
However, Steytler says the Centre remains focused on serving the people of South Africa and the Centre has in a number of ground breaking Constitutional Court cases acted as ‘a friend of the court’ in matters including housing and evictions, and the right to anti-retroviral medication.
On the basis of its research, the Centre also facilitates discussions between stakeholders. For example recently it hosted a roundtable with government, municipalities and ratepayers on the issue of the withholding of rates by ratepayers.
The Centre’s research activities are organised around four main projects: the Children’s Rights Project, the Civil Society Prison Reform Initiative, the Local Democracy, Peace and Human Security Programme, and the Socio-Economic Rights Project.
In his message of support to the Centre celebrating its 20th anniversary, long time patron and friend of the Centre Archbishop Desmond Tutu commented, “As you head into the future, may you continue to provide that unconditional and unsurpassed assistance to the marginalised as well as give policy direction in issues that affect our democracy.”
The Centre is not only focussed on South Africa and is deeply involved in continental research. Working closely with supranational agencies such as UNICEF, the Centre is working towards an African-wide law reform in children’s rights.