Author: Martin van Staden
Date: 29 November 2017
South African Airways (SAA) is not a parastatal, it is parasitical. Society as envisioned by our Constitution has no place for parasites, especially if its continual humouring has to come at the direct expense of equality, dignity, and freedom.
Section 1(c) of the Constitution provides for the supremacy of the Constitution and the Rule of Law. The essence of the Rule of Law is an aversion to arbitrariness, meaning any State conduct must be reasonable. Reasonableness includes rationality, proportionality, and effectiveness. For conduct, policy, or law to be rational, there must be a relationship between the end and the means employed to attain it. And, for this to be acceptable, there must be a justifiable ‘end’ which government seeks to achieve.
There is, fundamentally, no rational reason for the existence of SAA supported by the values and spirit that underpins our constitutional order. That SAA ‘represents’ South Africa to the outside world, ‘promotes tourism’, or, bizarrely, acts as a troop carrier during times of war, are flimsy reasons at best and gross intellectual dishonesty at worst.
(Read the rest of the article at the Free Market Foundation…)
Martin van Staden