Quote of the week
Early in 2016, a racist outburst by a white woman in KwaZulu-Natal, Penny Sparrow, ridiculing Black beachgoers as ‘monkeys’, and announcing that thenceforth she would ‘address the [B]lacks of South Africa as monkeys’, published in her online profile, was quickly disseminated countrywide. It convulsed South Africa in shame and acrid anger. The [Constitutional] Court was not unaffected. Previous members of the Constitutional Court took comfort in reflecting, with evident satisfaction, on the absence of racially loaded and racially defined splits. Dramatically, these now fractured the Court.
"Rainbows and Realities: Justice Johan Froneman in the Explosive Terrain of Linguistic and Cultural Rights" - Constitutional Court Review
Section 27 on Komape judgment
While we welcome the structural interdict to provide adequate and safe sanitation for learners in the Limpopo Province, we are at the same time extremely disappointed that the suffering of the Komape family and the circumstances of Michael ‘s death has been insufficiently recognised and acknowledged. It is our view that this is a missed opportunity for developing the law in respect of constitutional damages. The failure to award damages in this case stands in contrast to the damages that were awarded by the retired Deputy Chief Justice Mosenke to the families of the Life Esidimeni victims for the callous treatment of the victims in that case.
