Sharpeville, South Africa – Sixty-six years after police opened fire on anti-apartheid protesters, killing dozens and maiming many others, families of the victims are returning to the courts in a bid for justice. Lawyers for Human Rights has filed an application in the Gauteng High Court contesting the Indemnity Act of 1961, arguing that the apartheid-era legislation unjustly barred civil and criminal proceedings against the state.
The case seeks certification for a class action representing survivors who were shot and the dependents of those killed. More than 70 individuals have indicated support for the proposed litigation, which aims to remove legal barriers that prevented families from seeking compensation for decades.
Paulina Mathinye was just five years old when her father left their home near the Sharpeville police station on March 21, 1960. He was joining a community gathering protesting pass laws, which forced Black South Africans to carry documents restricting their movement. He never returned.
“I’ll go run to him… He will pick me up like daddies always do with their beloved daughters,” Mathinye recalled thinking at the time. Her father was among the 69 people officially recorded as killed by apartheid police that day, though researchers using police records published in 2024 estimate the death toll may have reached 91, with 238 injured.
For Mathinye, now 71, the massacre altered the trajectory of her life permanently. With her father gone, her mother took work as a domestic servant to support five children. Mathinye described nights without electricity and struggles to afford candles for studying. She desired to become a teacher but had to enter the workforce young to help her family, a path she contrasts with the lives of schoolmates who achieved professional careers.
“If my father was not shot, maybe I was going to be one of those people… Maybe by this time I would have been a teacher,” she said.
Similar stories of lost opportunity and inherited poverty echo through other families involved in the case. Ishmael Poho, 72, was six when his father was killed. He recalled finding his father’s body among others piled in police vehicle garages. His mother, a non-English speaker who had never worked outside the home, later found employment in a white neighborhood, while the children grew up working to sustain the household.
“If my father was alive, I would have been different,” Poho said, reflecting on the lives of peers who became nurses and health professionals.
The legal battle is not without precedent. Immediately following the 1960 events, victims attempted to pursue claims but were blocked when the apartheid government enacted the Indemnity Act in 1961. Charne Tracey-Mamdoo, a lawyer with the organization’s Strategic Litigation Programme, noted that the current application aims to declare the Act unconstitutional and invalid.
“The applicants argue that the Act created a legal barrier to civil and criminal proceedings arising from conduct covered by the legislation,” Tracey-Mamdoo explained.
For some families, the struggle spans generations. Mauleen Maine, 62, continues the effort begun by her uncle, a 23-year-old breadwinner killed the day she was conceived. Her grandmother, who sold liquor to survive after his death, and her parents, who also sought redress, all died without seeing justice resolved.
Maine emphasized that financial compensation alone is insufficient. Her family is also seeking improved housing and educational opportunities for younger relatives, arguing that the massacre’s impact extended beyond the immediate violence to shape decades of socioeconomic disadvantage.
Vincent Thamae of Voices of Sharpeville stressed that the case is about more than monetary awards. “It’s the question of how much does it need for a change in the lives of the victims and survivors?” he said, adding that the entire township suffered.
While 51 survivors previously received reparations through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, many feel the process was incomplete. Poho expressed disappointment that the democratic government that followed did not address their concerns as hoped.
The court has not yet ruled on the constitutionality of the indemnity law or determined government liability. However, lawyers emphasize the urgency due to the advanced age of the survivors. For Mathinye, the legal process is tied to a personal question she has carried since childhood: “Why did they shoot my father?”
Leave a Reply