This case arose from an incident in 2010 where Social Development officials, together with city officials and the police, swooped on workers and beggars at a Pretoria intersection and removed their children without a court order.

Some of the parents, assisted by Lawyers for Human Rights, together with the Centre for Child Law, brought an urgent application in two parts - the first was to have the children who had been wrongfully removed returned to their parents, and the second was to have certain sections of the law declared unconstitutional. The problem with the law was that it authorised police officials and social workers to remove children, but did not provide that a court hearing should be held to determine if that decision was correct.

The Constitutional Court's judgment means that from now on, where the powers of removal are used, they are subject to review by a children's court on the next court day, which means that children who are old enough to express a view, as well as those from whom they were removed, will have a chance to state their side of the story.


Click on this link to access a media article in this regard:
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=162387