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The Socio-Economic Rights Project hosted a roundtable discussion on elections and service delivery on 2 April 2019 at the University of the Western Cape. This roundtable provided an opportunity to for social justice activists, advocates, academics, community-based organisations, non-governmental organisations, policy makers and stakeholders to enter into a meaningful engagement centred on elections and service delivery.

Voters may under our current electoral system not be able to directly elect their political representatives for Parliament and the legislatures, but at least they have the right to object to candidates nominated by political parties contesting the national and provincial elections on 8 May. Voters now have until may not directly elect their political representatives may not have a say now have until next week 17:00 PM on 2 April to lodge objections.

It was his own personal loss and experience that moved Paarl resident Hendri Terblanche to petition Parliament to amend labour laws to allow for elder-care leave. He lost his mother-in-law to cancer last year and shortly thereafter, his godmother. His father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and his mother, Susan, with multiple sclerosis. “Our parents have dedicated their whole lives to take care of us to the best of their abilities and now it is our time to take care of them,” Terblanche told Parlybeat. He had also paved the way for the historic paternal leave amendment in the Basic Conditions of Employment Act after he petitioned Parliament.

When Western Cape Minister of Health Nomafrench Mbombo delivered her budget speech this week, it was clear poor people dependent on public healthcare in violence-prone areas like the Cape Flats should manage their budget and health-service expectations. The provincial Department of Health was allocated R24,8 billion for the 2019/20 financial year with a budget cut of R187 million. The total health budget cuts over the last three years amount to R1,2 billion whilst patient numbers consistently grew.

The plight of a farm-dweller family evicted from their home on a prominent wine farm in Paarl this week put the spotlight back on the growing tension between the legality and morality question relating to farm evictions. This eviction followed days after President Cyril Ramaphosa assured farmworkers in Citrusdal that his party would support farmworkers in their fight against evictions and oppression.

On 29 March 2019, the Dullah Omar Institute in collaboration with the Embassy of Argentina and the Department of Arts and Culture of South Africa hosted a seminar on Seminar human rights in South Africa and Argentina focusing on the experiences of the Robben island Prison and the ESMA Memory Site. This seminar was part of a wider cooperation agenda between memory sites which were established in countries in which widespread human rights violations were experienced, such as Robben Island Museum and ESMA Memory Site (Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada).

The Minister in the Presidency, Hon Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) cannot be attained without paying attention to women’s rights because women are the hardest hit by poverty. She said this when giving the keynote address to participants at the at a regional workshop to develop strategies to ensuring the visibility and active participation of civil society groups from Africa during the High Level Political Forum (HLPF) in New York, in July 2019.

Before 1994, South African institutions met none of the criteria for SDG 16. However, since the dawn of democracy, various institutions have been reconstituted to ensure they function in line with the constitution. This is according to the Deputy Minister of Justice and Correctional Services in South Africa, Hon John Jeffery, when giving a keynote address at a regional workshop to develop strategies to ensuring the visibility and active participation of civil society groups from Africa during the High Level Political Forum (HLPF) in New York, in July 2019. The workshop is currently holding at the Protea Hotel, Parktonian, Johannesburg until the 29th of March 2019.