ZELDA VENTER
A VICTORY for South Africa’s most vulnerable, is how advocacy groups hailed the judgment by the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, which among others ruled that regulations limiting access to the R370 a month Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant are unconstitutional and invalid.
Judge Leonard Twala also declared that regulations relating to the Covid-19 SRD are unconstitutional and invalid to the extent that it provides for these grant applications to be lodged on an electronic platform only - a means which many don’t have.
Another regulation he had declared as invalid pertains to the extent that it sets the income threshold for insufficient means at R624 per person per month.
It is declared that the Constitution requires the government to devise and implement a plan to address the retrogression in the value of the SRD grant and income threshold.
The judge ordered that the government had to progressively increase the value of the SRD grant and the value of the income threshold prescribed.
In devising the plan on the way forward, the government and Social Development, in consultation with the Minister of Finance, must, in setting the income threshold to qualify for the SRD grant, give due consideration to people unable to support themselves, and the need to provide the SRD grant to all persons unable to support themselves.
The government must also consider increases in inflation and the cost of living and the need to ensure that no one living in poverty is excluded from accessing the grant.
The genesis of this case arose when in May 2020 the government promulgated the SRD grant as a temporary mechanism in terms of the Disaster Management Act.
This was at the time intended to be of temporary duration to alleviate hunger to people with insufficient means and who could not support themselves and their dependants following the devastation caused by the Covid–19 pandemic.
The SRD grant targeted unemployed working-age adults and was not means-tested at the time.
The grant was meanwhile raised from R350 to R370 last year and those who earn less than R624 a month.
It was undisputed that, as a result of the stringent criteria for eligibility for the SRD grant, the applications between March 2022 and April 2022 dropped from over 15.8 million to just over 8.1 million and the approvals from 10.9 million to 5.6 million.
However, in June 2022 the Black Sash, a civil society organisation, brought an application challenging the reduction of the income threshold from R595 to R350 as well as other exclusionary provisions in the April 2022 regulations.
This resulted in a settlement agreement reached between the parties which was made an order of court that the minister amend the regulations and increase the insufficient means or qualifying threshold to the current sum of R624.00 which was in line with the food poverty line at the time.
The Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) and #PayTheGrants, represented by the Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI), meanwhile challenged the regulations last year as it said it excluded millions of potentially eligible people living in poverty in this country.
In responding to the judgment, the applicants said it affirms that up to 18.3 million people should be able to access the SRD grant. The judgement, they said, stands to directly benefit both those who currently receive the grant (approximately 7.5 million people), as well as those being unfairly excluded (up to 11 million more).
It does this by ensuring that barriers put in the way of grant access are removed. The judgment also orders the government to remedy systemic problems of non-payment and late payment of approved beneficiaries.
Because of the far-reaching impacts of the judgment for so many South Africans, and for the government’s own social protection system, the applicants appeal to the government not to contest this judgment.
“The judgment paves the way to give effect to the government’s own policies, as articulated by the President, of ensuring a social assistance floor for all, improving and expanding the SRD grant, and transitioning to a system of basic income support,” they said.
The Department of Social Development meanwhile said it is studying the judgment and will respond in due course.