COHRE Housing and ESC Rights Law Quarterly Vol6 No.1 2009

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housing and esc rights law Centre on housing rights and evictions

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Vol. 6 - No. 1 March 2009

quarterly

With the Housing and ESC Rights Law Quarterly, the COHRE ESC Rights Litigation Programme aims to present advocates and other interested persons with information on national and international legal developments related to housing and economic, social and cultural rights.

Roy Sesana et al v Attorney General: The San Bushmen case Land Restitution for Indigenous Peoples of Botswana by Gordon Bennet1 The case of Roy Sesana Keiwa Setlhobogwa and Others v. the Attorney General before the High Court of Botswana dealt with remedies for the forced eviction of the San Bushmen, an indigenous people, from their lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The Court ordered restitution of the land leading to the return of the Bushmen to their ancestral home. 1

The Central Kalahari Game Reserve (the CKGR) is a semiarid desert about the same size as Belgium. It was formed in 1961 by the colonial administration of Bechuanaland, as it then was called, to protect wildlife from big game hunters who flocked to the area in search of sport. Another, equally important, purpose was to provide a safe haven for the Bushmen to whom the Central Kalahari

has been home for a thousand years or more. Unfortunately the Government Notice by which the Reserve was created said nothing about the legal right of the Bushmen to remain there. Nor do the laws of independent Botswana. On the contrary, the Wildlife Regulations 2000 expressly state that “No person shall enter or be within a national park or game reserve unless he

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Gordon Bennet represented the Applicants at trial.

1 • Roy Sesana et al v Attorney General: The San Bushmen case Land Restitution for Indigenous Peoples of Botswana

2 • Summary

6 • Declaration of incompatibility with European Convention of Human Rights made relating to a law allowing local authorities to evict tenants without first holding an independent inquiry: the Gallagher case

5 • Case notes European Committee of Social Rights decision on the right to education for children with intellectual disabilities: Mental Disability Advocacy Centre (MDAC) v. Bulgaria, European Committee of Social Rights, complaint no. 41/2007, decision on the merits of 3 June 2008

7 • High Court of Australia judgment on land rights for indigenous people: Minister Administering the Crown Lands Act v NSW Aboriginal Land Council, [2008] HCA 48, Case no. S217/2008, 2 October 2008.

8 • Cases to watch South African Supreme Court: Mazibuko & Ors v. City of Johannesburg & Ors: Phiri Right to Water Case • Shadow Report to the Committee Against Torture: Violations of the rights to housing, water and sanitation by Israel

This publication has been made possible with the support of the United National Housing Rights Programme, http://www.unhabitat.org/unhrp, and the Canadian International Development Agency, http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/index-e.htm. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily shared by the UN, UN-Habitat or CIDA. ISSN 1812-240 X


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COHRE Housing and ESC Rights Law Quarterly Vol6 No.1 2009 by The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) - Issuu