‘Abandonment’ in the 2020 Expropriation Bill
I have said and written much about the Expropriation Bill of 2020, which will likely become the Expropriation Act of 2021 sometime this year. In this article I would like to focus on one particularly …
Finding constitutional freedom of choice in the right to dignity
The justiciability of unenumerated constitutional rights is understandably controversial. Cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States many decades ago such as Griswold v Connecticut and Roe v Wade remain contentious to this …
Considering arguments against the constitutionality of the Riotous Assemblies Act and related matters
Author: Martin van Staden Date: 11 December 2019 The nature of constitutionalism lies in its checks and balances – limitations – on government power. Prior to the advent of constitutionalism, governments, in the form of …
Legal policy brief: The Traditional Courts Bill, 2017
Author: Martin van Staden Date: 25 November 2019 INTRODUCTION The Traditional Courts Bill, 2017, is intended to fill the void left by those provisions of the Apartheid-era Black Administration Act that empowered traditional leaders to adjudicate disputes …
Violations of the Rule of Law undermine the Political Party Funding Bill
Author: Martin van Staden Date: 13 June 2018 The Political Party Funding Bill appears to be well on its way to becoming law in South Africa. Its intention to shed light on the identity of …
Marshall v SARS (2018) CC
Case Note Marshall NO and Others v Commissioner, South African Revenue Service [2018] ZACC 11 Constitutional Court By: Martin van Staden Facts The South African Red Cross Air Mercy Service Trust (the Trust), an NPO, …
Substantive equality cannot override formal equality
Author: Martin van Staden Date: 20 December 2017 It is now well-accepted in South African constitutional jurisprudence that the Constitution’s guarantee of equality in section 9 is not merely concerned with ‘formal’ equality (equality at …
Government’s embrace of parasitical SAA is unconstitutional
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 …
Parliament’s surrendering of power to bureaucrats jeopardises democracy
Author: Martin van Staden Date: 14 November 2017 Did you know that when you drive 140 in a 120 km/h zone, you are not ‘breaking the law’, at least not directly? The same applies when …
The Rule of Law: What is it?
“The ‘Rule of Law’ has become somewhat of a buzz-phrase that politicians and activists in civil society use quite liberally. It has often been used to denote the opposite of its true meaning, thus we risk it being rendered meaningless as a whole. But such a concept does exist, in our law and, more importantly, philosophically,” writes Martin van Staden.