Quote of the week
Universal adult suffrage on a common voters roll is one of the foundational values of our entire constitutional order. The achievement of the franchise has historically been important both for the acquisition of the rights of full and effective citizenship by all South Africans regardless of race, and for the accomplishment of an all-embracing nationhood. The universality of the franchise is important not only for nationhood and democracy. The vote of each and every citizen is a badge of dignity and of personhood. Quite literally, it says that everybody counts. In a country of great disparities of wealth and power it declares that whoever we are, whether rich or poor, exalted or disgraced, we all belong to the same democratic South African nation; that our destinies are intertwined in a single interactive polity.
August and Another v Electoral Commission and Others (CCT8/99) [1999] ZACC 3
Home Affairs to the rescue
A reader responds to my post on the state’s recognition of a change in one’s sex/gender.
There seems to be another way to change your gender – even if you don’t intend to: just apply to Home Affairs for a passport. Quote from yesterday’s Cape Times: “Sindie Bosch has been waiting a year for a passport, putting up patiently with delay after delay – and it all got a bit much when she was recently handed the document – in the name of a Mr. Chauke. When she returned to Home Affairs, the assistant at the desk at the Centurion office here asked: “But isn’t that you on the photo?””
