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
When Menzi Simelani was appointed head of the NPA we labelled it “An Appalling Choice”. We said it was the stuff of which our worst nightmares are made. We said at the time, the real problem, among many others, was that Simelane had said he believed the NPA head must bow to executive authority, i.e. the president, when it comes to making decisions. On the contrary, the Constitution is explicit that the office of the NPA does not bow to anyone. It bows only to the “Constitution and the law”. But now we know that Simelane not only does not see South Africa’s ultimate law as necessarily binding. He is indeed now meddling in it. – Stephen Grootes at Daily Maverick
