Community rights come first: South Africa’s Constitutional Court puts a final stop to Shell's unlawful oil and gas exploration

South Africa’s Constitutional Court has permanently halted Shell and Impact Africa’s controversial oil and gas exploration off the pristine Wild Coast. The landmark judgment handed down today, confirming the unlawfulness of their exploration right, is not only a victory for the Wild Coast communities who challenged fossil fuel giants, but is also an emphatic legal declaration that meaningful participation is not mere process and financial investments cannot override constitutional rights. 

In the precedent-setting judgment handed down by Justice Jody Kollapen, the Constitutional Court upheld the finding in the 2022 judgment of the Makhanda High Court in the Eastern Cape which found that the exploration right granted to Impact Africa and Shell was unlawful due to serious deficiencies in the public participation process, amongst other concerns.