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
It is ironic that the dismissal of leave to appeal comes on the back of the suspension of Mr Paul Ngobeni, the legal advisor of the Minister of Defence who no doubt had a hand in the ill fated strategy of the now unlawful dismissal notices. In SANDU’s view the same Ngobeni should not have been appointed in the first place given his dubious background. This point of view was simply compounded by the obnoxious and out of turn letter to Minister Manuel. Today’s finding should sound the final bell for Ngobeni. Ironically the Minister seems to be destined to follow the same flawed process in the possible termination of his services as the one Ngobeni had a hand in meeting out to soldiers. – Pikkie Greef, National Secretary of the SA National Defence Union
