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
The defence argues that it would breach Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights to order extradition of this defendant to South Africa. It would breach Article 2 if there is known to be a real risk to Mr Dewani of loss of life in the receiving 45 country. To establish Article 3 the defence must show that there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk that the requested person will be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in the requesting state. In each case it is necessary to show there where the risk is from non-state agents, that there is in addition a lack of reasonable protection in the receiving country. It is common ground that an assessment must be made according to the specific circumstances as they would apply to Mr Dewani rather than generalized concerns. A high threshold is required to establish Article 3. The ill-treatment must necessarily be serious such that it is an affront to fundamental humanitarian principles to remove an individual to a country where he is at risk of serious ill-treatment. – Judge Howard Riddle in judgment in the Shrien Dewani extradition case
