High court orders schools, hospitals and police stations to be shielded from load-shedding

The Pretoria high court has ordered government to ensure public hospitals, clinics, schools and police stations are shielded from load-shedding.  

The interim order must be implemented within 60 days. It states the minister of public enterprises “shall take all reasonable steps ... to ensure that there shall be sufficient supply or generation of electricity to prevent any interruption of supply as a result of load-shedding”. 

In its judgment, the court said there had been “repeated breaches by the state of its constitutional and statutory duties and that these breaches are continuing to infringe on citizens’ rights to healthcare, security and education”. 

The judgment was the result of an application brought by the UDM, other opposition parties, NGOs and individuals. Detailing how load-shedding affected healthcare, security and education, judge Norman Davis — on behalf of a full bench — said the right to basic education was an unqualified right under the constitution. The consequences of load-shedding were particularly keenly felt in rural and township schools, he said. 

“Often, due to no alternate sources of electricity being available (generally, in contrast to private schools), these schools close down for a particular day, thereby not only depriving learners of education, but also of their only guaranteed meal of the day,” said the judgment. 

Setting out the history that brought South Africa to its current load-shedding crisis, Davis said government had been warned, and had accepted, that it would run out of generating capacity in 2008. In “the 15 years since then, [it] has failed to remedy the situation.” Eskom had conceded load-shedding caused human suffering and had a detrimental effect on human rights.

Davis said while government argued it had plans in place to deal with load-shedding, these were “uncertain” and would not solve “the urgent needs of the installations mentioned in [the] applicants’ application”.  

While courts should be mindful of not intruding into the executive sphere, what was sought in this case was a vindication of constitutional rights — which was the business of courts. 

“We find the granting of emergency relief is disconnected from policy-making or executive governmental decisions and is justifiable.”  

The court would couch its order “wide enough” to leave it in the hands of the minister as to how he would remedy the situation, also allowing him to work with whatever other government departments were necessary.   

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