No MORE Load-Shedding for Hospitals, Schools and Cop Shops

Zodwa07/05/2023

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Pretoria High Court rules that public facilities should not be affected by load shedding.

Pretoria High Court has ruled that public hospitals, schools and police stations across South Africa should not be affected by power cuts caused by load shedding.

The ruling was issued on Friday, 5 May, and gives the Minister of Public Enterprise Pravin Gordhan 60 days to take “all reasonable steps” to ensure uninterrupted power to all these public facilities. In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at the recent ruling and its implications.

Earlier this year, ActionSA, the United Democratic Movement (UDM), the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), and 17 other organizations filed a legal bid to get the government to respond to the load shedding crisis, which has become an urgent human rights issue. The ruling was not in favor of the government, as political parties and others won a legal victory to ensure electricity supply to hospitals, schools, and police stations.

ActionSA confirmed the ruling in a statement on Friday, and they also welcomed the decision. “The legal victory would ensure that communities across South Africa will no longer be subject to the failures of the ANC and Eskom, which have left our communities at their mercy when hospitals, police stations and schools lose electricity during increasing levels of load shedding,” ActionSA said.

The ruling requires the government to take all reasonable steps to ensure that public facilities are not affected by load shedding.

Court has given the Minister of Public Enterprise Pravin Gordhan 60 days to implement measures to ensure uninterrupted power supply to these facilities.

ActionSA also criticized the ANC government for its inaction on the issue, saying that “after almost 15 years of load shedding it was clear that the ANC government lacks the will to resolve the crisis, leaving South Africans in the dark. It is our belief that without urgent intervention by our courts, the government will continue to let the ensuing crisis persist unabated.”