Sharpeville Survivors Sue to Void the Law That Shielded Their Shooters
AFRICA
Photo: Universal History Archive/UIG vis Getty Images
Survivors and relatives of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre filed a class action against the South African government on September 2, seeking to have the apartheid-era Indemnity Act of 1961 declared unconstitutional.
The suit, brought with Lawyers for Human Rights, argues the law — which shielded police from prosecution over the killings and was never repealed — is what has kept survivors and families of the dead from claiming compensation for 65 years. Official counts put the toll at 69 dead; plaintiffs cite research showing 91 killed and more than 238 wounded when police opened fire on a protest against pass laws. The filing was accompanied by a silent walk retracing the original march.
If the Act falls, the state could face compensation claims from survivors and dependents for the first time — testing whether South Africa's constitutional order can still reach backward into apartheid-era impunity, and putting numbers behind the reckoning over what the liberation-era political settlement did and didn't foreclose.