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 the Way is lost, Lao Tse says in sutra 38, there is always goodness. When goodness is lost, there is love or kindness. When kindness is lost, there’s justice. And when justice is lost … well, then you’ve got HR and Customer Relations Management. Well, that’s not the way he put it – the text says ritual – but you get my drift. We’re in trouble. – Andries du Toit on his Blog, “a subtle knife”
