Spotlight on an understudied institution: evictions and the Magistrate's Court in South Africa

Evictions constitute gross violations of a range of internationally recognised human rights, including the rights to adequate housing, food, water, health, education, work, security of the person, security of the home, freedom from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and freedom of movement. Evictions intensify inequality, segregation and ghettoization, and invariably affect the poorest, most socially and economically vulnerable and marginalised. In this episode, we speak to Nerishka Singh, a researcher at the Socio-Economic Rig​hts Institute of South Africa (SERI), and Timothy Fish Hodgson, Legal Advisor to the International Commission of Jurists on Economic, Social and Cultural rights in Africa, about eviction cases before the Magistrate’s Courts in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Magistrate’s Courts fall lowest in the hierarchy of courts in South Africa, but are most accessible to the public, and yet these are least studied by researchers. This podcast delves into cutting-edge research by SERI on how the constitutional requirements of the right to adequate housing and right against arbitrary evictions under s 26 of the South African Constitution are implemented by the Magistrate’s Courts. Recorded August 2019. Transcript available on the Oxford Human Rights Hub website (ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk).