When Minister Blade Nzimande was appointed to the Cabinet by President Jacob Zuma, some voices in the South African Communist Party (SACP) questioned the wisdom of him continuing to serve as the general secretary of the SACP. Given the experience of the SACP with some of its members who served in Thabo Mbeki’s cabinet and who often seemed [...]
Posts under ‘Constitution’
Champagne socialism at its best
I was not sure exactly how to react when I read that Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande (who also moonlights as the Secretary General of the South African Communist Party) yesterday expressed his support for striking public servant workers and said the government must deal with the huge salary gap between low-earning public servants and the government’s “highest paid [...]
The Windows of Heaven (and your wallets) are open!
One of the (many) reasons why I am not a fascist or a Stalinist is because I am rather worried that people might begin to think that I am a repressed and self-hating homosexual who is trying to hide his true self by embracing rightwing Christian fundamentalism. If I ever wavered in my commitment to [...]
On race, transformation and freedom of testation
The South African Constitution contains provisions – including section 8 and section 39 – that allow courts radically to transform the common law and even to reinterpret legislation to bring it in line with the “spirit, purport and object” of the Bill of Rights. One of the concepts in our law that has long been held [...]
Picking your nose with your big toe?
Defence Force Minister Lindiwe Sisulu (otherwise affectionately known as “The Princess”), is obviously not a great fan of section 23 of the Constitution. This section states, amongst other things, that: “everyone has the right to fair labour practices”; every worker has a right “to form and join a trade union” and “to participate in the [...]
Newsflash: sex workers also have dignity
Do sex workers have the same inherent human dignity guaranteed in our Constitution for everyone else living in South Africa – despite the fact that our Parliament in its “wisdom” has declared sex work illegal? In the case of Kylie v Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration the Labour Court in effect found that they [...]
Why the hate speech provisions may be unconstitutional
One should be careful not to endorse legislation merely because it is being used in one case against one person whom one may not like very much. It is always better to look in a principled manner at legislation and to ask whether the legislation is good or bad for our democracy and whether the [...]
What we talk about when we talk about accountability
Accountability lies at the heart of our constitutional order. Yet, many South Africans and the overwhelming majority of politicians (and their apologists and enablers in academia) do not seem to believe in the muscular form of accountability envisaged by our Constitution. Despite some encouraging signs that some Parliamentary committees are grappling with ways of holding [...]
Don’t blame the Constitution
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has denied giving an interview in which she criticised Nelson Mandela because “he negotiated a poor deal for Black people” (although she has not denied saying these words – just that she did not say them during an interview). Over at Politicsweb, Musa Xulu is perplexed that this statement has caused so much controversy. [...]
Jeff Radebe (LLM Leipzig) got it wrong again
Readers of this Blog already know that Minister Jeff Radebe (LLM Leipzig) has some pretty strange views about the Constitution. We also know that he is not a man to let the facts or an authoritative interpretation of the Constitution intrude on an expedient political argument. So it should come as no surprise that in [...]
