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In the early days, we convened what would become the flagship ENS Constitutional Law Course. Community leaders, shop-stewards, pastors, youth organisers and activists, people whose daily work already demanded courage, took their seats in our training room. Day after day, they wrestled with chapters of the Constitution: the supremacy clause, the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, socio-economic entitlements. They arrived weary from full days of service and left animated by new vocabulary for the justice they had always pursued. The graduation that followed is still etched in our collective memory: graduates draped in black blazers bearing the ENS logo, clasping certificates that radiated purpose. Many of those graduates now run advice centres, sit on school governing bodies, lobby municipal councils and train others, creating a ripple effect the drafters of the Constitution could only have hoped for.
Not every victory has been celebrated in a hall filled with applause. Some unfolded in hushed court corridors where fear and hope converged. We think of the woman who entered our office clutching a plastic packet stuffed with faded documents, evidence of months spent shuttling between police stations, clerks and shelters while fleeing an abusive partner. By the time her matter reached the magistrate’s bench, she had rehearsed defeat so often that success felt unimaginable. One of our practitioners marshalled the facts, invoked the Domestic Violence Act and, with a steadiness that belied the gravity of the moment, secured a final protection order. The crisp scratch of the magistrate’s pen was an audible line drawn between violence and peace; the smile that broke across our client’s face was the purest expression of relief we have witnessed.
In quieter offices, entrepreneurs arrived with sketches, slogans and dreams. Their ideas could have been lost to misappropriation, yet each successful trade mark registration placed an invisible shield around enterprise and ingenuity. We watched fledgling businesses mature, employ neighbours and sponsor local initiatives, all because a legal instrument protected their intellectual capital. Adjacent to these victories, a single birth certificate issued at Home Affairs ensured that a child whose existence had been in administrative limbo could enrol in Grade R without obstacle. The ink on that certificate affirmed a right to education, healthcare and social grants, charting a future previously out of reach.
Some milestones bore bricks and mortar. In Beacon Valley, gang violence had long claimed corners and courtyards, but hope took shape in the unveiling of a new Early Childhood Development centre. The Pro Bono Trust funded the project while our attorneys navigated the maze of regulatory approvals. In that instant, a building became a fortress of innocence and a statement of what communities deserve irrespective of their postcode.
Then came the global rupture of COVID-19. While fear and misinformation spread faster than the virus, our pro bono team mobilised a vaccination drive. We negotiated with health authorities, converted a community hall into pop-up clinics and canvassed streets in door-to-door campaigns. The arrival of the first coolers of vaccine vials was met with cheers more often reserved for championship matches. Each jab administered was a testament to the law’s capacity to facilitate public health and collective responsibility.
Our commitment has also reached back into history’s unfinished chapters. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission promised disclosure, repentance and restitution, yet many families of anti-apartheid activists were left with unanswered questions and unaccounted-for losses. This work, painful and protracted, reaffirms that justice delayed need not be justice denied.
As the programme has matured, so too has its ambition. Impact litigation now complements direct legal services: we challenge systemic barriers to housing, education and healthcare, ensuring that individual triumphs feed into structural reform. Between pleadings and judgments we still find room for joy, like the day a class of learners visited our office, giggling as they role-played a mock trial in which the right to play itself was on the docket. Their earnest arguments reminded us that the future of constitutionalism rests in curious, unjaded hands.
Two decades have passed, yet each sunrise over Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha renews our mandate. We remain guided by a simple conviction: access to justice is not charity but an obligation intrinsic to our licence to practise law. The stories collected along the way, of courage reclaimed, rights vindicated and communities fortified, have changed us more than any statute book or reported judgment. They deepen our understanding of what the law can do when wielded in solidarity with the people it is meant to serve.
Here’s to the next twenty years of walking alleys, courtrooms and classrooms in pursuit of an ever-broadening horizon of justice. May the stories yet to be written continue to change us, and through us, the world we are privileged to serve. DM
Author: Otsile Matlou, Chief Operating Officer at ENS