Q&A

The SA Human Rights Commission says it will take five provinces to court to force them to get rid of the pit latrines at their schools. Chris Barron asked commissioner ANDRÉ GAUM ...

They’ve been taken to court before and the pit latrines remain. What are you hoping to achieve?

A structural interdict in respect of these five provinces. And we want them to provide the court and the commission with costed work plans with targets.

We’ve been here before, haven’t we?

Yes, Section27 took the Limpopo department of education to court, and that court order was not effective. The department indicated that their time frame for eradicating pit latrines is 2030. But the court did step in and made it clear that this is unacceptable and that they should come up with realistic and proper time frames. It’s an ongoing struggle. The advantage of going to court is that they have to report back on their progress. So it’ sa very strong mechanism of monitoring implementation.

So why have you waited so long?

The eradication of pit latrines is governed by regulations on minimum norms and standards for school infrastructure published by the minister in 2013 ...

Requiring the eradication of pit latrines?

That’s right. We gave the department till 2016 to do it, but it hasn’t been done yet.

What did you do about it when your deadline was ignored?

The commission has taken various steps over the years. Remember, we are constitutionally obliged to work with the government, which we’ve really tried to do in getting them to eradicate pit latrines. We’ve had meetings and sent letters requesting their plans, but we’ve now come to a point where the adversarial route is the only route to follow.

Didn’t you produce a report in 2014 stating that pit latrines were a violation of human rights?

That is absolutely the case, yes.

Eight years ago?

We’ve had continuous engagements with the department, but we have now drawn a line in the sand.

How would you describe their response to these engagements?

In general it is, even for the SAHRC, a struggle to get the necessary information from the provinces. When we put them on terms pertaining to the provision of plans and time frames, the responses were totally inadequate.

Do you have any teeth at all?

Yes, absolutely we do have teeth. We could, for example, subpoena MECs and so on.

Have you subpoenaed the minister, Angie Motshekga, yet?

We are working on a letter to the minister to also put the minister on terms.

Michael Komape drowned in a pit latrine in 2014, and since then there have been others. Shouldn’t you have held the minister accountable years ago?

Through this litigation, we’ll now be holding the minister accountable.

Has the SAHRC been weakened by cadre deployment?

No. My impression is that the commissioners we have act independently without fear or favour as the constitution requires, and are definitely not afraid to take the government on.

Thanks to the Zondo commission, we now know that ANC cadres were deployed to the SAHRC, don’t we?

That is open for interpretation. It appears that the deployment committee merely makes recommendations. In the final analysis, it is parliament that appoints commissioners.