Three people affected by the 1960 Sharpeville massacre have sued the South African government for compensation, arguing that a law protecting the apartheid-era state from liability is unconstitutional.
The claimants are seeking about 500,000 rand each. If the case succeeds, dozens more people affected by the police shooting could bring claims, according to their legal team.
What happened at Sharpeville
On 21 March 1960, thousands of residents gathered outside the police station in Sharpeville, about 40 miles south of Johannesburg, to protest pass laws. The rules required Black, Indian and Coloured South Africans to carry documents stating where they were permitted to be.
Police opened fire on the crowd. At least 91 people were killed and 238 injured. Abraham Mofokeng, then a 20-year-old factory worker, was shot in the back while fleeing; a bullet remains lodged in his spine.
The protest was one of dozens organised nationwide by the Pan Africanist Congress, which had split from the African National Congress. Police said afterward that protesters had thrown rocks, while the claimants’ account describes the gathering as peaceful.
Why the legal challenge matters
The apartheid government passed an indemnity law in July 1961 after victims began seeking compensation. Applied retrospectively to the date of the massacre, it protects the government and people acting under its authority for actions taken in good faith to prevent or suppress disorder, maintain public safety or preserve life and property. The law remains in force.
The claimants’ lawyers, led in South Africa by Lawyers For Human Rights with advice from Leigh Day, are challenging that protection. Mofokeng previously received a one-off payment of 30,000 rand after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded its work in 2003. The commission had also recommended annual payments of about 20,000 rand for six years.
The two other test claimants were children whose fathers were killed. Paulina Mathinye was five when her father, Samson, died; she later left education at 17 to work after her family struggled financially. She said compensation could address part of what she lost after his death.
A wider push over apartheid-era crimes
The Sharpeville case follows other litigation over unresolved apartheid-era abuses. In January 2025, 25 survivors and relatives sued the government over its failure to prosecute cases referred by the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a judicial inquiry into possible political interference in those cases in May 2025. That inquiry is still ongoing. The justice department did not respond to a request for comment on the Sharpeville compensation case.
What happens next
The compensation case will proceed as a constitutional challenge to the 1961 indemnity law; the source does not give a hearing date or timetable.
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