Activist launches bold movement to confront systemic injustice and restore human dignity
Image: Ayanda Ndamane/ Independent Media
A new justice‑led movement is taking shape in South Africa's legal corridors as human‑rights advocate Pearl Walsh unveiled Social Impact With Pearl, an initiative that vows to expose judicial dysfunction, protect the vulnerable and 'bring humility back to humanity through human dignity'.
Walsh, 37, is a Cape Town-based activist whose decade-long track record spans court-reform campaigns, gender-justice litigation, and anti-corruption drives aimed at the Legal Practice Council, the Ministry of Justice, and Parliament.
Known for her uncompromising stance and direct challenges to authority, she says the movement is 'not about politics, it's about people'.
'Constitutional rights are not optional. Humanitarian values are not negotiable. Justice must work for everyone or it works for no one,' Walsh told reporters on the Western Cape High court steps, flanked by survivors of domestic violence and parental‑rights disputes.
The campaign's launch manifesto pledges to confront 'corruption in the courts, failure in the legal system and injustice committed in the name of law'.
It commits to amplifying survivor stories, mentoring youth activists and offering rapid legal‑literacy workshops in communities cut off from legal assistance.
Among those standing with Walsh was Belinka Unger, who said a 2013 custody ruling has effectively confined her to Cape Town for 12 years.
'I have tried to protect my daughter and pursue work outside the province, but every time I leave, I'm charged with contempt,' Unger said. 'Meanwhile, her father, a judicial officer, owes maintenance and faces no consequences.'
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Charmalaine Zwiegelaar, embroiled in a five‑year divorce and eviction battle, described repeated abuse.
'My teeth were damaged during assaults, yet I'm the one left homeless,' she said.
'I want justice for myself and my children.'
Walsh argues such cases illustrate 'a justice system that serves the few at the expense of the many' and believes public pressure can force institutional change.
'Silence enables harm. Accountability begins with truth,' she said.
Raised in Retreat, Walsh traces her activism to witnessing court delays in her mother's domestic violence case. After completing paralegal studies, she worked with women's shelters before launching a court-watch program that logged hundreds of delayed maintenance hearings. Her slogan, 'bringing humility back to humanity through human dignity' now anchors the new movement's branding.
Social Impact With Pearl will file an open‑access report on alleged lapses by the Legal Practice Council next month and plans a national listening tour to gather testimony from litigants, beginning in KwaZulu‑Natal on 5 August.
Walsh is also lobbying Parliament's Justice Portfolio Committee for public hearings into 'systemic breaches of Section 34 rights to access courts'.
She urged citizens to 'rise with us, protect rights, demand truth and rebuild trust', adding that the movement would track institutional responses and publish scorecards online.
mandilakhe.tshwete@inl.co.za
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