Legal Resources Center

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The Legal Resources Center (LRC), German as "Legal Resource Center" is a non-profit - civil rights organization in Johannesburg . It was founded in 1979 to provide legal support to the disadvantaged. It is also known as a law clinic in South Africa and is the largest of its kind in the country. The founding of the organization was initiated by two lawyers, Arthur Chaskalson and Felicia Kentridge , who were against the apartheid system of the time .

prehistory

Before 1961, there were voluntary legal advice centers in South Africa. After government grants to these facilities were cut in 1961, most of these offices closed. The Voluntary Legal Aid Bureau in Johannesburg , which worked for all population groups, remained the only large institution of its kind . It was financed with municipal funds and donations from the public and was registered as a charity . The lawyers working there received no payment for their advisory services . In 1968 the Johannesburg Legal Aid Bureau (Arop House) provided 11,202 individual consultations, out of which 500 cases were tried. It was directed by lawyer Pauline Lipson (since 1930) with the support of social worker Lily Goldblatt. This facility has also received financial support from western countries, including the US Carnegie Endowment for International Peace , Ford Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation .

With the coming into force of the Legal Aid Act ( Act No. 22/1969 ) and the Legal Aid Amendment Act ( Act No. 56/1971 ), the South African government built a nationwide state system of legal advice bodies, which was called the Legal Aid Board and helped Lawyers from state institutions was occupied. These included members of the judiciary and the Bantu administration .

The LRC was founded in a social environment in which parts of the legal academic world in South Africa reacted to the increasing human rights violations in their country and received international support for this. John Dugard , Dean of the Faculty of Law at Witwatersrand University until 1977, established the Center for Applied Legal Studies at his university in July 1978 together with other lawyers . He found external support from American institutions, the Carnegie Corporation , Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers' Fund .

Foundation phase

After an international conference on human rights issues in Cape Town in January 1979, the Association for the Protection of Human Rights was created in June during a meeting of 200 lawyers at the Witwatersrand University . Johan L. van der Vyver was at the head of its board of directors . The panel included: S. Bhengu, Arthur Chaskalson, George Bizos , John Dugard, Sydney Kentridge , Johan C. Kriegler , K. Lister, A. Mathews, SA Strauss, R. Trucker, Sithole and M. Wiechers.

The central concern of the founding of the LRC was its legally oriented, advisory support for those looking for help from the non-European population group in their capacity as consumers or employees , especially in the areas of looking for housing and influx control regulations ( access control in regional labor markets in South Africa at the time of apartheid). Furthermore, one of the aims of the organization was to train the affected population groups on how to object to state discrimination measures and how to exercise their rights in this regard more effectively.

A study by the National Institute for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of Offenders (NICRO) found influx control measures (under the Blacks (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act , Act No. 25/1945 ) to be one of the most important causes of crime rates using the example case of the township of Mamelodi . The severely restricted freedom of movement of non-European and consequently disadvantaged people on the labor market as a result of these legal restrictions hindered their independent job search, which led to increasing unemployment of predominantly black people in the metropolitan areas. The emerging “social pathologization ” in this population group turned into an increase in crime. Judicial convictions for violations of the passport laws (influx control) increased sharply between 1979 and 1980. The geographic focus for this practice was the metropolitan areas of Pretoria and Johannesburg.

The University of Cape Town operated a public Legal Aid Clinic (German: " Legal Aid Group "), which in 1979 had several offices in Cape Town. These were in the districts of Crossroads , Elsies River, Heideveld , Kensington , Manenberg , Retreat and on the university campus. The Legal Resources Center took over the direction of such institutions in early 1979 and cooperated with the law faculties of several South African universities. In September 1979, students from the University of Pretoria set up a Legal Aid Clinic for all population groups in the Eersterust district of Mamelodi . According to statements by representatives of the LRC, when it was founded, it should by no means be publicly called for the use of legal advice, but rather ongoing cases from other organizations active in this field should be taken over. This group included Black Sash , the Legal Aid Bureau and the National Institute for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of Offenders (NICRO). In August 1979, the Legal Resources Center was opened in Johannesburg and was headed by Arthur Chaskalson. In this city the Witwatersrand University has so far operated four offices of its Legal Aid Clinic with the help of law students .

Further development

Johann Kriegler and Sydney Kentridge, among others, have acted as trustees from the start . Other well-known lawyers at the LRC were or are Sandile Ngcobo , Sisi Khampepe , Navanethem Pillay , Yasmin Shenaz Meer and George Bizos . The LRC supported defendants in numerous trials during apartheid and was able to achieve many successes that benefited the disadvantaged population groups as a whole.

After the end of apartheid, lawyers from the LRC were appointed to high positions. Arthur Chaskalson became the first President of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of South Africa in 1994 and Chief Justice from 2001 to 2005 in a comparable position , Sandile Ngcobo followed him in 2009 as Chief Justice at the Constitutional Court, where Sisi Khampepe also served as judge from 2009. Navanethem Pillay was appointed United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2008 .

After the “ Marikana Massacre ” in 2012, the LRC took the side of the miners in the Farlam Commission negotiations . Bizos led the group. After the Commission's report was published, the LRC, along with other mutual legal aid organizations, filed numerous civil suits, including against the Lonmin mining company and the police .

In March 2015, representatives of the LRC took part in a conference in the USA on the subject of privacy and surveillance in the digital age , at which the American whistleblower Edward Snowden was connected via Skype . In June 2015 a British commission of inquiry stated that the British secret service Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) had illegally spied on the LRC and the human rights organization Amnesty International . It was the first time the UK government had to admit that it spied on human rights organizations. Edward Snowden had previously made public that the GCHQ had intercepted the LRC's email traffic.

structure

The headquarters of the LRC is located in Johannesburg, where the Constitution Litigation Unit is also located and - in addition to Cape Town , Durban and Makhanda - one of the four regional offices is located. Around 65 lawyers are employed by the LRC. The work focuses on the areas of land ownership, social security, housing and house planning, the environment, children, gender issues, refugees, civil society, the constitution and rule of law, continental effects, access to justice and applied research. In general, the work is aimed at people who are vulnerable and marginalized , for example "vulnerable and marginalized". The work is based on democracy and the pursuit of equality based on the constitution. The work also includes proposals for the country's current legislative process.

At the top is a National Director, currently Nersan Govender (as of 2020).

George Bizos is a Senior Counsel in the Constitution Litigation Unit .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Official website , accessed on August 18, 2015
  2. ^ Telkom Ed Tillett: Johannesburg legal center gets online boost from Telkom . News from June 14, 2002 on www.itweb.co.za (English) accessed on August 27, 2015
  3. ↑ Embassy of the United States of America: Letter of September 30, 1980 to Pauline Lipson (PDF). from www.pdf.usaid.gov (English) accessed on August 27, 2015
  4. ^ SAIRR : A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1969 . Johannesburg 1970, pp. 59-61
  5. ↑ SAIRR, Survey 1971 , pp. 79-82
  6. ^ Witwatersrand University: Center for Applied Legal Studies. Our History ( Memento of the original from July 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . at www.wits.ac.za (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wits.ac.za
  7. ^ Witwatersrand University: Fighting for Justice. The Center for Applied Legal Studies 1978-1991  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . at www.wits.ac.za (English)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.wits.ac.za  
  8. ↑ SAIRR, Survey 1980 , p. 222
  9. ↑ a b SAIRR, Survey 1979 , p. 102
  10. ^ SAIRR, Survey 1881 , p. 239
  11. ↑ SAIRR, Survey 1981 , p. 235
  12. ↑ SAIRR, Survey 1980, pp. 226-227
  13. ^ A b Sydney Kentridge: Free Country: selected lectures and talks. A&C Black, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-78225348-8 . Excerpts from books.google.de
  14. ^ Mineworkers file civil claims against Lonmin and security company.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. lrc.org.za, accessed August 18, 2015@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.lrc.org.za  
  15. ↑ International civil liberties groups gather to discuss privacy and surveillance in the digital age.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. lrc.org.za of March 12, 2015 (English), accessed on August 18, 2015@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.lrc.org.za  
  16. ^ NSA scandal: GCHQ spied on Amnesty International. heise.de from July 2, 2015, accessed on August 17, 2015
  17. ↑ a b GCHQ surveillance of two human rights groups illegal: tribunal. The Guardian, June 22, 2015, accessed August 18, 2015
  18. ↑ a b List of employees on the LRC website ( Memento of the original from March 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English), accessed on August 18, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lrc.org.za
  19. ↑ Principles of the LRC ( Memento of the original from July 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English), accessed on August 18, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lrc.org.za