The Black Sash is an NGO aimed at ensuring that all South Africans enjoy the rights they are entitled to.
Headed by women, the organistion has been at the forefront of the struggle for human rights in South Africa for nearly 55 years.
The Black Sash is an NGO aimed at ensuring that all South Africans enjoy the rights they are entitled to.
Headed by women, the organistion has been at the forefront of the struggle for human rights in South Africa for nearly 55 years.
Along with 24 people in Eastern Cape, the Black Sash recently launched a legal application against the government on behalf of tens of thousands of people who have waited for a long time for their social grant appeals to be heard, and for many more whose appeals have been rejected.
Marcella Naidoo, the national director of the Black Sash, says the decision to take the government to court is one that was not taken lightly.
She says they have felt compelled to “clear the huge appeals backlog and deal with the excessive delays”. The 24 applicants have asked the court to declare the Department of Social development in breach of the Social Assistance Act which provides for an appeals process.
Naidoo says that the 24 people who have joined with the Black Sash against the inadequacies of the government all suffer from a disability of some sort and have waited for 18 months or more for the outcome of their appeals.
They are “asking the court to order the government to clear the backlog within a period of three months and to provide details of how they intend to achieve this.”
Sarah Sephton, the regional director of the Legal Resources Centre in Grahamstown says two of their clients died while waiting to hear the outcome of their appeals.
She says Florence Tuck, who suffered from secondary heart failure and grade 3 Chronic Obstructive Airways Disease, was told that her disability was controllable with medication and she did not qualify for a grant. Tuck appealed the decision in March last year, but died later in the year.
