10 July 2025, Johannesburg – 10 July 2025 marks exactly one year since Judge Mmonoa Teffo handed down the Life Esidimeni Inquest judgment. The inquest found that the conduct of Ms Qedani Mahlangu (the former Gauteng Health MEC) and Dr. Makgabo Manamela (the former Director of Mental Health in Gauteng) on the face of it caused the tragic deaths of nine mental health care users. Today also marks exactly one year of no action on prosecution from the NPA, despite the judgment from a three-year long inquest that concluded in July 2024.
SECTION27, the Life Esidimeni family members and the South African Depression and Anxiety Group remind the NPA that the mental healthcare users who died tragic and avoidable deaths while in the care of the state were human beings, with families who loved them and whose dignity and right to life were stolen.
We remember the lives of Virginia Machpelah, Deborah Phehla, Frans Dekker, Charity Ratsotso, Koketso Mogoerane, Terrence Chaba, Daniel Josiah, Matlakala Motsoahae, and Lucky Maseko and the 135 others who died in this disaster.
In his 2018 report, retired Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke called the disaster “a harrowing account of the death, torture and disappearance of utterly vulnerable mental healthcare users in the care of an admittedly delinquent provincial government.”
To ensure that we never again see such a disastrous and reckless abuse of public power in our country, the affected families and civil society organisations will continue, until we see justice done, to call on the NPA to prosecute.
We urge the NPA to prioritise the prosecution of Ms Mahlangu and Dr Manamela.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Pearl Nicodemus | nicodemus@section27.org.za | 082 298 2636
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