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
The role of MPs
The fact that members of the Assembly assume office through nomination by political parties ought to have a limited influence on how they exercise the institutional power of the Assembly. Where the interests of the political parties are inconsistent with the Assembly’s objectives, members must exercise the Assembly’s power for the achievement of the Assembly’s objectives. For example, members may not frustrate the realisation of ensuring a government by the people if its attainment would harm their political party. If they were to do so, they would be using the institutional power of the Assembly for a purpose other than the one for which the power was conferred. This would be inconsistent with the Constitution.
