Nomzamo Zondo

Executive Director

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Nomzamo became SERI's Executive Director in January 2020 after serving as SERI's Director of Litigation since July 2014. Nomzamo joined the organisation as an attorney in February 2013. In May 2018, she was elected to serve on SERI's Board of  Directors. Joining SERI fulfilled her lifelong dream to work with exploited and marginalized communities and of using the law to balance the scales of social justice.

Nomzamo works mainly on cases related to the right to housing, defending communities threatened with eviction and litigating for the provision of basic services in and the upgrading of informal settlements. She has represented social movements and community-based organisations fighting to secure adequate housing and informal traders and informal workers fighting for their right to earn a living.

Nomzamo has led SERI’s litigation unit to numerous ground-breaking victories, including:

• Dladla and Others v City of Johannesburg and Another2018 (2) SA 327 (CC)
• South African Informal Traders Forum and Others v City of Johannesburg and Others 2014 (4) SA 371 (CC)
• Occupiers of Erven 87 and 88 Berea v De Wet N.O. and Another 2017 (5) SA 346 (CC)
• Melani and Others v Johannesburg City and Others2016 (5) SA 67 (GJ)

She holds an LLB degree from the University of the Witwatersrand and served her articles of clerkship with the Wits Law Clinic. She was admitted as an attorney in 2008 and later joined Glenrand MIB, attending to claims on the Attorneys Insurance Indemnity Fund Scheme.

 Op-eds:

• The Legacy of Marikana: Accountability urgent to prevent another atrocity, Nomzamo Zondo and Maanda Makwarela, Daily Maverick (15 August 2018). 
• Downtown gentrification steals from the poor to give to the rich, Nomzamo Zondo and Thulani Nkosi, Business Day (8 September 2017). 
• 'Bad buildings' - the law is not the problem, Lauren Royston, Lwazi Mtshiya and Nomzamo Zondo, Daily Maverick (6 July 2017).
• What students will learn from exercise of power, Stuart Wilson and Nomzamo Zondo, Business Day (21 October 2016).
• Upgrading informal settlements: The importance of the Slovo Park judgment, Nomzamo Zondo and Lauren Royston, Daily Maverick (11 April 2016).