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
On perceived plans to place curbs on the judiciary, Zuma said [in an interview with Redi Tlhabi]: “No arm of government [can] be left alone”. Whether you talk about the legislature, the executive or the judiciary, these are three very vibrant arms of government. To say one is going to be left unattended to is incorrect,” he said. What this means in effect is anyone’s guess. – Ranjeni Munusamy bemoaning the awful vagueness of President Zuma’s answers in a live interview on Radio 702.
