On 23 August, South Africa’s Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) launched a legal aid clinic; the first of it’s kind in South Africa. The clinic aims to provide all victims of censorship in South Africa, and in particular members of the country’s poorer communities, with free legal counselling, and to tackle “precedent-setting freedom of expression cases”.

The FXI, which was formed in 1994 by the merger of three smaller press freedom organisations, recently registered as a law clinic with the Law Society of the Northern Provinces. This has permitted the organisation to provide the community with free legal advise in areas which are of particular interest to it: cases of “defamation, “gagging” interdictions, protection of journalistic sources, bans on marches, hate speech and other violations”. The FXI established the clinic in response to what it perceives as a climate of growing threats to media freedom in South Africa.

The clinic, which is funded by the Foundation for Human Rights, will provide training for students, young lawyers and community-based paralegals. It will also provide “strategic support for free expression and access to information work in the Southern African Region”.

The South African Human Rights Commission’s chairperson, commissioner Jody Kollapen, and advocate Gilbert Marcus SC, of the Johannesburg Bar, inaugurated the clinic with speeches. The clinic is situated in the South African Human Rights Commission Conference Centre and will be directed by attorney Simon Delaney.

SOURCE: International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX)