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Rule of law
The Treatment Action Campaign(TAC) , SECTION27, the Social Justice Coalition, Community Media Trust and the Coalition Against Discrimination welcome the release and pardon of Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza in Malawi. They were arrested in December 2009 after getting engaged and sentenced in May 2010 to 14 years imprisonment for ‘gross indecency and unnatural acts’. 
Leading activist organisations have condemned the cruel sentence by a Malawian magistrate imposed on Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, two men (one of whom is transgender and identifies as a woman) because they held a public engangement. They have been sentenced to 14 years in hard labour. 
We condemn in the strongest terms the 14 years of hard labour sentence handed down by a court in Blantyre to Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga for committing so-called “unnatural acts”. Steven and Tiwonge were arrested in December 2009 after celebrating their engagement and have been in jail ever since. 
Following the initiation of legal proceedings, on 7 May 2010, the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (CIPRO) has agreed to permit the AIDS Law Project (ALP) to reserve the name SECTION27, incorporating the AIDS Law Project. CIPRO initially refused to reserve the name, SECTION27, incorporating the AIDS Law Project, explaining as follows, “your proposed name connote government patronage. The wording employed to serve as a name, cannot be allowed and are calculated to cause damage, moreover misleading and damaging”. CIPRO also refused our request on the basis of a comparison with existing names on its database, however, they bore no resemblance to the requested name. 
Fourteen years ago, our freely elected representatives adopted the Constitution – in part – to “free the potential of each person”, “[h]eal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights”. 
Documents related to the Central Methodist Church vs City of Johannesburg (Loitering Case) In response to a call for input on the Green Paper: National Strategic Planning, the ALP recently made a submission to the Presidency and Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee on the Green Paper on National Strategic Planning. The ALP’s interest in making this submission stems from its commitment to defend and enforce human rights and to ensure that the state discharges its constitutional obligations in accordance with its democratic mandate and the rule of law. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the AIDS Law Project (ALP) welcome this opportunity to make a submission to the Panel for the Independent Assessment of Parliament. The TAC and ALP are civil society organizations dedicated to upholding the rights of people to have access to health care services, to ensuring that the state discharges its positive constitutional obligations in respect of that right, and to ensuring a comprehensive response to HIV/AIDS both domestically and internationally. A week after Cabinet adopted the Operational Plan for Comprehensive HIV and AIDS Care, Management and Treatment for South Africa (“the Operational Plan”) in November 2003, MM – an inmate at Westville Correctional Centre and the seventh applicant in the case of EN v Government of Republic of South Africa (No 1) – was diagnosed withoesophageal candidiasis, an AIDS-defining illness. As a section 21 not-for-profit company and a registered law clinic, the AIDS Law Project (ALP) seeks to develop, implement and use laws and policies to protect and advance the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS. In so doing, it aims to ensure arights-based response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic that it believes is best suited to reducing new HIV infections and minimising the negative social impact of AIDS. Part of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg from 1993 until 2006, the ALP – as an independent organisation – is now formerly associated with the Wits School of Law. |
 
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Legal advice
Understanding NHI