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
Public Protector fails to be honest
In the matter before us it transpired that the Public Protector does not fully understand her constitutional duty to be impartial and to perform her functions without fear, favour or prejudice. She failed to disclose in her report that she had a meeting with the Presidency on 25 April 2017 and again on 7 June 2017. As we have already pointed out above, it was only in her answering affidavit that she admitted the meeting on 25 April 2017, but she was totally silent on the second meeting which took place on 7 June 2017. She failed to realise the importance of explaining her actions in this regard, more particularly the last meeting she had with the Presidency. This last meeting is also veiled in obscurity if one takes into account that no transcripts or any minutes thereof have been made available. This all took place under circumstances where she failed to afford the reviewing parties a similar opportunity to meet with her. The Public Protector failed to make a full disclosure when she pretended, in her answering affidavit, that she was acting on advice received with regard to averments relating to economics prior to finalising her report.
