Simon Delaney is a veteran human rights litigator and social justice activist. Simon has litigated media freedom cases in the Constitutional Court as head of the Freedom of Expression Institute Law Clinic. He opened pro bono departments at law firms Norton Rose and Eversheds before being appointed National Director at ProBono.Org.
Simon is an expert litigator, researcher, trainer and strategic planner. He has been involved in many high profile, cutting-edge human rights law cases in South Africa.
Highlights of Simon’s career include:
- Co-wrote the ‘State of Capture’ Report with ex-Public Protector Thuli Madonsela (2016).
- Argued before the African Court on Human & People’s Rights in Arusha, Tanzania in Konaté v Burkina Faso which ruled that the Burkinabe defamation laws were in violation of the African Charter on Human & Peoples Rights (2014).
- Represented Mxolisi Nxasana (ex-National Director of Public Prosecutions) in the Constitutional Court case which ordered the removal of the incumbent (2018).
- Won case in Supreme Court of Appeal representing indigent occupiers in Occupiers of Shulana Court v Mark Lewis Steele (2010).
- Represented Freedom of Expression Institute as amicus curiae in Constitutional Court cases of Laugh-It-Off v South African Breweries (the t-shirt case); NM v Smith (the HIV/privacy case); KZN MEC of Education v Pillay (the nose-stud case).
Simon has particular expertise in protecting the right to freedom of assembly. He has taken several cases to court to overturn unlawful prohibitions of the right to protest. In 2017 Simon started the Right2Protest Project (R2P), a coalition of NGOs dedicated to assembly-rights issues.
In 2019 Simon drafted a research report entitled ‘Supporting Assembly Rights in Africa’ after spending a year visiting Southern and East African countries, interviewing activists, lawyers and regulators.
