facebook-logo 35x35Twitter 35x35

Assisting poor and marginalised groups to realise an adequate standard of living
Developing housing rights and basic services jurisprudence.
Ensuring pro-poor legal and policy frameworks and developing socio-economic rights jurisprudence
Ensuring pro-poor legal and policy frameworks and developing socio-economic rights jurisprudence

Civil Society Coordination

  • SERI hosts civil society roundtable on housing demand and allocation, 3 April 2013. SERI and the Good Governance Learning Network (GGLN) are hosting a roundtable discussion on 3 April 2013 in Johannesburg. The roundtable discussion will provide an opportunity for SERI to present the findings of a research report entitled "'Jumping the Queue', Waiting Lists and other Myths: Perceptions and Practice around Housing Demand and Allocation in South Africa". This report was written together with the Community Law Centre (CLC), based at the University of the Western Cape, and will be published in April 2013.
  • Workshop on coordinating civil society around informal settlement upgrading, 28 September 2010. SERI and the LANDfirst network (coordinated by Afesis-corplan) organised a workshop in Johannesburg for NGOs, think tanks, CSOs, social movements, lawyers and academics around coordinating efforts to advance informal settlement upgrading in South Africa. Read the workshop report here.
  • Discussion on the issue of 'conflict of interest' in legal firms doing pro bono litigation, 21 July 2010. When is a conflict of interest genuine or not? A topical issue at present is how do firms deal with "perceived conflicts of interests" and what are real conflicts of interests when law firms just cannot take on matters. Some law firms say because they want to secure future business from a local authority/municipality, they cannot sue them for illegally breaking down shacks in an informal settlement. The repercussions for private law firms taking on pro bono socio-economic rights cases, partiucarly against municipalities, have been felt in the past.  On 21 July 2010, Jackie Dugard from SERI facilitated a discussion hosted by ProBono.Org on this issue of 'conflict of interest' and how to deal with it within and across legal firms. A legal opinion was prepared for SERI on this topic and is available here.
  • Socio-economic rights seminar, 20-21 May 2010. SERI, together with the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) and Webber Wentzel Attorneys, held a two-day seminar analysing the latest socio-economic rights decisions from the Constitutional Court (Oliva Road, Joe Slovo, Mazibuko, Joseph, Abahlali and Nokotyana) and engaging with communities and social movements on the way forward. The purpose of the seminars was to analyse the implications of the recent decisions for litigators and civil society; and to engage the legal profession and social movements and community organisations in a discussion about the possible/tactical use of litigation as part of their broader strategies for change.
  • Roundtable discussion on 'meaningful engagement', 4 March 2010. SERI and the Community Law Centre (CLC), University of the Western Cape co-hosted a roundtable discussion on ‘meaningful engagement’ on 4 March 2010 in Cape Town. The event was attended by social movements, community activists, lawyers, NGOs, academics and government officials, who shared their experiences and discussed the concept and practice of meaningful engagement in relation to housing and service delivery. Read the roundtable report here.