“The Constitution is our lever for systemic change.”
SECTION27 maintains that “when an empowered, legally literate society demands and secures accountability from the state and the private sector, and when laws, policies and budgets are in place and effectively implemented, then access to quality healthcare services and basic education improves, is more equitable and is in line with the South African Constitution.”
SECTION27’s Theory of Change
Read our Theory of Change Overview
SECTION27’s Theory of Change underwent a full institutional review in 2024. Our seven implementation strategies include using the law through litigation, advocacy, legal literacy, research, client engagement, community mobilisation and institutional strengthening to achieve rights realisation.
All of SECTION27’s litigation and advocacy campaigns are based on evidence obtained through a combination of research (legal and budget research); rights violations complaints made to SECTION27’s Advice Office; information obtained by field staff from community members and learners; and information provided by partners and coalitions. Although we do assist individual members of the public who approach us for assistance, a guiding question that drives our litigation and advocacy is to what extent our involvement can address the root causes of rights violations and can result in systemic improvement in the public health and basic education systems. SECTION27 collaborates with learners, communities, community accountability structures, as well as coalition and sector partners to increase rights literacy, and to empower and mobilise for collective action.
SECTION27 adds value to the social justice sector by facilitating engagement with stakeholders, providing thought leadership on the issues that we work on, sharing our successes and learnings, and supporting the next generation of public interest lawyers and activists.
This methodology and our Theory of Change serve as the backbone for SECTION27’s Strategic Plan 2025-2027
Our “Impact” Journey
Measuring social justice impact is complex and long term, and rarely the product of one intervention or one organisation. SECTION27 has taken a strategic decision to embed a reflective, learning-oriented approach to monitoring and evaluation, one that focuses on contribution rather than attribution, and one that can contribute to the effectiveness of the broader social justice sector.
While we care deeply about being able to produce evidence of our contribution to impact, we are equally as committed to reflecting on, documenting and sharing the challenges and successes along the way, and how we are using those reflective moments to learn and adapt our various strategies as necessary. This approach also relates to our M&E system, where we are continuously testing and learning about what monitoring data we need to collect, what questions to ask, what tools work best, how to use the data
Our Results
With a proud 32-year history, in the past ten years, SECTION27 has worked effectively with partners to achieve systemic change through our advocacy and litigation interventions, where cases and campaigns build important jurisprudence (legal impact), strengthen government accountability (political impact) and remove systemic barriers to accessing healthcare services and basic education (material impact). Some examples include:
Successfully representing the family of Michael Komape, a 5-year old boy who drowned in a school pit latrine in Limpopo. The Supreme Court of Appeal awarded damages to the family and ordered the DBE to provide an audit and plan to address the school sanitation crisis. As a direct result of our rigorous monitoring of the court order, as of June 2025, only five of the original 564 planned sanitation projects in Limpopo P1 schools have not been completed. The Komape Evaluation Report (full and summary) provides a comprehensive review of SECTION27’s contribution to the eradication of pit latrines in Limpopo schools.
SECTION27 together with Equal Education and the EE Law Centre, successfully fighting for the reinstatement of the National School Nutrition Programme for all 9 million eligible learners in all grades during the COVID-19 pandemic. The High Court made a landmark judgment, affirming that the Department of Basic Education (DBE) was responsible for ensuring that learners have access to sufficient food as part of its obligations to realise the right to food and the right to education.
SECTION27 and Blind SA successfully challenging the constitutionality of the Copyright Act of 1978 in the High Court, to the extent that it hinders the availability of accessibly formatted materials for persons who are blind or partially sighted. The court judgment provides a vast and immediate improvement to access to books in accessible formats for people who are blind. See this Case Study about SECTION27’s intervention.
SECTION27 and Cancer Alliance’s tenacity in negotiating with the Gauteng Treasury and Gauteng Department of Health resulted in the allocation of R784 million for surgical and radiation oncology backlogs. SECTION27 has had to undertake further litigation to ensure that the money is spent and that people on the backlog list for radiation oncology treatment at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital will be able to receive the services they need.
SECTION27 obtained a groundbreaking court order that directs that all pregnant and lactating women and children under six, regardless of their nationality or immigration status are entitled to free health services at all public health facilities. This has led to a noticeable decrease in the number of complaints of lack of access to healthcare services from pregnant and lactating women and children under six.
SECTION27 and the Centre for Child Law succeeded through litigation in the Supreme Court of Appeal in securing an amendment to the South African Council of Educators’ Mandatory Sanctions Policy . This change requires that sanctions imposed on educators for corporal punishment be reformed to include rehabilitative sanctions and must be in the interests of the child.
SECTION27 and the Life Esidimeni families succeeded in securing compensation for the violation of families and mental health care users rights, improvement to the mental health care system in Gauteng, and an inquest judgment which opens the door to prosecution of former MEC for Health Qedani Mahlangu and former Director of Mental Health Dr Makgabo Manamela for causing the deaths of 9 people.
We have documented the journeys of individual clients who have approached us for assistance in successfully addressing rights violations through these Stories of Change.
We requested feedback from our donors through a Donor Satisfaction Survey in 2022. The results confirmed our high credibility, reputational capital and loyalty amongst our donors, with all donors indicating that SECTION27 is making an impact through its work. We also learned about where we need to improve.
Recommendations we’ve made through policy submissions have influenced the Climate Change Act, the BELA Bill and the National Health Insurance Act. We also successfully represented a learner in a case in KwaZulu-Natal where a school’s Pregnancy Policy automatically excluded a pregnant learner from writing her matric exams, which goes against the National Policy on Learner Pregnancy. Our legal intervention ensured the province amended its policy, setting precedent and preventing broader systemic rights violations.
We produced a Learning Brief on our experience undertaking climate justice advocacy with health and education sector partners in 2024-2025.
The effectiveness of our methodology is highlighted in these peer-reviewed journal articles:Legal mobilisation for education in the time of Covid-19, 09 December 2021, Faranaaz Veriava & Nurina Ally, South African Journal on Human Rights: https://doi.org/10.1080/02587203.2021.2004919
The Komape litigation – ensuring effective remedies, 2023, Faranaaz Veriava & Mila Harding, De Jure Law Journal: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2225-7160/2023/v56a30
What others have said about us
“The partnership with SECTION27 to find a solution for the radiation oncology crisis at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital has been a learning experience for us in advocating for equitable cancer care access in the public sector. The professional guidance and high standard of input coupled with support helped us to be more focused and effective in achieving our advocacy goals. This would not have been possible without this valuable partnership – we look forward to continuing this relationship.”
June 2025, Cancer Alliance
“Social justice organisations have been responsible for exposing many of the most significant governance failures and corruption scandals of recent times: think Jacob Zuma’s nuclear procurement plans (Earthlife Africa), the Net1/SA Social Security Agency debacle of unauthorised deductions from the bank accounts of social grant recipients (Black Sash and the Centre for Applied Legal Studies), the Gupta leaks (amaBhungane) and the Life Esidimeni tragedy (Section27).”
Tracie Davies: In Praise of SA’s Unsung Heroes
July 2022, Financial Mail
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SECTION27 uses a combination of law and activism and works with partners to effect systemic change in the health and education systems in South Africa. We use strategic litigation and community mobilisation to seek the realisation of the rights to access health care services and education.