Public interest

Public interest law is used to test the legality of the administrative powers exercised by a public authority.

Under this programme we work to support the emergence of specialist public interest lawyers from within indigenous and marginalised communities, to enable them to assert their legal rights in specific situations where these have been ignored or violated. On each project we train and mentor local lawyers in public interest law, so that in the future they are able to work on similar cases independently. A proportion of any damages or compensation won is placed back into our Legal Defence Fund which will then be used to finance similar projects elsewhere, thus making our work sustainable.

The Lesotho Project is the first project in our public interest programme. Others are in planning.