On 20 January 2025, twenty-five survivors and families of victims who were forcibly disappeared or killed during South Africa’s fight for democracy have filed a court application against the President and the government. They are seeking constitutional damages for the government’s gross failure to adequately investigate and prosecute apartheid-era political crimes following the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) process.
The suppression of post-TRC accountability efforts has allowed witnesses and perpetrators to pass away, effectively eliminating the possibility of prosecutions in most of those cases. These are cases that can never be revived. As a result, the government has denied survivors and victims’ families their fundamental rights to justice, truth, and closure.
The application is brought by 22 individual applicants (representing survivors and families) and the Foundation for Human Rights, a South Africa-based human rights organisation, as an institutional applicant.[1] Lukhanyo Calata, representing the families of the Cradock 4 activists, is acting as the main applicant.
WATCH | Families of murdered anti-apartheid activists who never got justice sue government for R167m
