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 complaint about lack of transformation is sometimes directed at the retention of power by those who held it under apartheid. That charge cannot be made against the leadership of the judiciary. The Chief Justice, the Deputy Chief Justice, the President of the Supreme Court of Appeal, the Deputy President of the Supreme Court of Appeal and all the Judges President of the High Court are Black; none held office under apartheid; all were appointed under the present Constitution. That charge can also not be made against the judges of the Constitutional Court which is the highest court in the land and the guardian of the Constitution. Chief Justice Mogoeng was a judge of the Constitutional Court when he was appointed as Chief Justice following the retirement of Chief Justice Ngcobo. The vacancy caused by the retirement of Chief Justice Ngcobo has not yet been filled; prior to his resignation 8 of the 11 judges of the Constitutional Court were black; and all eleven had been appointed to the Constitutional Court by the President in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. – Former Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson in a speech delivered at UCT
