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South Africa

After a long struggle for freedom and democracy, the 1993 Interim Constitution and then the 1996 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa greatly expanded traditional South African rules of standing. They created the right to assert class action litigation as one way to enhance protection of fundamental rights, including those in South Africa’s Bill of Rights.

References:

• Nokuthula Mogiba and Hugh Melamdowitz, “Class Actions in the Republic of South Africa,” International Litigation News, September 2007, 42. (This newsletter is published by the International Bar Association, Legal Practice Division, http://www.ibanet.org.)
• Clive Plasket, “Representative Standing in South African Law,” a national report for the conference “The Globalization of Class Actions,” held in Oxford, England, on December 12–14, 2007 (co-sponsored by Stanford Law School and the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies of Oxford University). Available at http://www.law.stanford.edu/classactionconf.

(This information was updated May 2008.)

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