STEVE KAHANOVITZ
Many thanks for that opportunity Mr Chairperson.  Legal Resources Centre is a public interest law firm that was set up approximately 18 years ago.  It was set up by what I would think was a group of lawyers who had a lot of insight they include the current President of the Constitutional court, Arthur Chasscelson, Sidney and Felicia Kentridge and a number of others who believed that it was possible using law to create space for people who were oppressed in this country.
 They believed that there were various contradictions in our law, that there were rights in the common law which could be used to advantage people, which the South African State sought to disadvantage.
 Over the years we've acted for people in those positions.  We have decided that our resources must be used for the poor and indigent to ensure that they can ensure their rights in South Africa.
 We  often had to search for those rights in the law prior to 1994, nowadays we are very pleased that we have a constitution with a Bill of Rights that enable quite a lot of those rights to be sought and enforced more easily.