Court rules Sassa’s regulations limiting access to SRD grant unconstitutional and invalid

The Gauteng High Court has ruled the South African Social Security Agency’s (Sassa) 2023 regulations, which limited access to the R370 social relief of distress (SRD) grant, are unconstitutional and invalid.

The landmark judgment was handed down on Thursday.

Legal action

Last year, the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) and advocacy group #PayTheGrants (#PTG) sued the social development minister over the 2023 SRD grant regulations, which had major effects on recipients. 

The organisations argued that the regulations unlawfully excluded millions of impoverished individuals from accessing the grant and that the definition of “income” was too broad, as it included financial support received through means outside of employment.

Judgement

In a scathing judgment, Judge ML Twala said SASSA and the Department of Social Development “seem to be oblivious” to the human suffering and indignation caused by the combination of inefficient administration and the deployment of regulations with barriers that preclude the eligible SRD grant applicants from receiving it.

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Twala declared that a regulation relating to the SRD grant was unconstitutional because it provided for SRD grant applications to be lodged on an electronic platform only. The court said to remedy that regulation, the words “or at the offices of the agency” shall be read after the words “on the electronic platform”.

‘No explanation’

In addition, Twala said the Government had provided no explanation for why the SRD grant was significantly less than the food poverty line, although the purpose of the SRD grant is to alleviate hunger and poverty.

The food poverty line for 2023 was R760 a month, while the SRD grant was pegged at R350.

The court also declared that “financial support” means money received on a regular basis that benefits the recipient, does not constitute income, and which the recipient has a legal right to receive.

“Regulation 2(3)(c)(1) is declared unconstitutional and invalid to the extent that it makes provision for “checks against databases that may indicate income or alternative financial assistance”.

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“Regulation 2(3)(c)(ii) is declared unconstitutional and invalid to the extent that it directs that SRD grant applicants’ applications are assessed according to a proxy means test consisting of verification of insufficient means with banks,” the court ruled.

‘Depleted funds’

The court also declared another regulation invalid to the extent that it made payments to beneficiaries of the SRD grant subject to available funds and permitted the Sassa to withhold payment of the SRD grant to SRD grant beneficiaries if available funds were depleted.

The court directed that Sassa investigate the cause of widespread delays in payments to successful SRD grant applicants and devise and implement a plan to address those delays.

“The Minister of Social Development is directed to deliver a plan to the parties and this Court within four months of the date of this order and implement the plan without delay.

“The applicants are entitled to re-enrol the matter, on duly supplemented papers, to seek further relief in relation to the Minister of Social Development’s implementation of paragraphs 17 or 18,” Twala ruled.

‘Unfathomable’

The court described why the minister and Sassa would justify an irrational and arbitrary verification procedure that excluded people who were eligible and entitled to access the SRD grant as unfathomable.

In October last year, SASSA reported that more than 17 million people applied for the SRD grant IEJ noted that the figures aligned with previous peaks, although the grant remained capped at 8.5 million beneficiaries.

The recent figures mark an increase of over three million people since September 2021, when 13.8 million applications were recorded.

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