The applicants’ claim was based on s. 27(1)(b) of the Constitution – the right to sufficient food and water, which they submitted found further expression in the provisions of the Water Services Act 108 of 1997 (“WSA”). Their complaint argued that farm occupiers and labour tenants, especially the applicants, lacked “access to sufficient water, basic …Read more

The applicant and his daughter were admitted to the hospital as they suffered from serious dysentery after drinking tap water. She ensued action against the State-owned utilities provided. The District Court ruled in her favor. The Higher Courts confirmed the findings of the first instance but reduced the award by more than half of the …Read more

The National Environment Management Authority (“NEMA”) demolished the petitioner’s house after serving notice that his residential property was in a wetland. He filed a Constitutional Petition in the Constitutional Court maintaining that his rights over his property and his right to a hearing and to an appeal had been violated. He claimed that Sections 67, …Read more

This case was about the scope of the constitutional right of access to a water supply. The applicant was a resident of Kwa-Ngquba Locality and the respondent was a District Municipality responsible for providing water services under the Water Service Act 108 of 2017. The case of the applicant was that in 2004, the respondent …Read more

The petitioner is a social activist that works on raising concern over the high maternal mortality in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The petitioner alleged that the state’s program to reduce the maternal mortality rate (MMR) had failed to be implemented effectively in Madhya Pradesh. The petitioner had filed this petition, alleging that about …Read more

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), a non-governmental organization, filed a case against the Federal Republic of Nigeria alleging human rights violations as a result of the government’s failure to ensure adequate environmental protection in the Niger Delta due to oil spillage. SERAP alleged that decades of oil prospection and exploitation by private corporations …Read more

Water in Silobela, Carolina Town and Caropark neighbourhoods in the town of Carolina, South Africa was contamintaed by acid mines severaly rendering it unfit for consumption. Water tanks were brought in from neighboring towns to supply drinking water to the town’s residents, but some of the tanks were not refilled, and some were not refilled …Read more

The petitioners claimed that a group of armed police officers arrived on their land and without warning or a court order begun demolishing the houses and structures of the petitioners, leaving them homeless. Further, they alleged that police used tear gas and physical violence to evict the petitioners, who were resisting the demolition. The petitioners …Read more

Appellants, a married couple who are members of an indigenous community known as the “Basarwa,” sought reversal of a High Court decision that had denied members of the Basarwa communities a constitutional right to utilize at their own expense a borehole located within the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) for purposes of extracting and using …Read more

The plaintiff, Eugen Gabriel Radu, a Romanian national, applied to the European Court of Human Rights claiming that the conditions in the Romanian prison Bucarest-Jilava violated Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which prohibits torture and inhumane or degrading treatment. The plaintiff was sentenced in 2001 and again in 2006 for aggravated …Read more