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.

Justice Albie Sachs
August and Another v Electoral Commission and Others (CCT8/99) [1999] ZACC 3
18 January 2010

Jaco Barnard-Naudé – A response to Prof Kader Asmal

A response to Prof Asmal’s view on the reparations case Jaco Barnard-Naudé  Prof Kader Asmal’s erudite opinion (avaliable here) on why the […]


13 January 2010

Jaco Barnard-Naudé: Reparations for big business collusion with apartheid overdue

Angry appeals show true colours of business Published in Business Day on 13 January 2009 JACO BARNARD-NAUDÉ THE apartheid reparation […]


7 January 2020

Reasoned criticism of courts holds the judiciary accountable, questioning the integrity of judges does not

South African courts are likely to hand down several politically significant judgments in 2020. This will include cases involving Public […]


24 November 2015

Apartheid mentalities and the transformation of legal culture

By Jaco Barnard-Naudé The controversy sparked by attorney Richard Spoor’s recent remarks which boils down to ‘I basically only brief […]


23 October 2015

Statement by members of UCT Faculty of Law on the use of violence by SAPS

Statement by the Faculty of Law on the use of violence by SAPS 23 October 2015 The Faculty of Law […]


5 July 2012

Some platitudes on returning to South Africa

I arrived back yesterday after almost three weeks in Eastern Europe, where I remained blissfully unaware of the media-reported (and […]


15 June 2012

Announcing a guest blogger for the next two weeks

I am flying off to Eastern Europe this afternoon and will only be back on 4 July. I am embarking […]


24 November 2011

But let me acknowledge once more, loud and clear: I am an apartheid beneficiary. I am not proud of it. […]


19 January 2011

24 January in Cape Town: SA, Germany and the living Constitution

The Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany would like to draw the attention of the Cape Town legal […]


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