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
Bang ’em up! Hanging’s too good for them! MPs turned on the three Murdoch employees who are believed to have lied to the Commons culture committee. And pretty comprehensive fibs they seem to have been. Porkies, whoppers, fabrications, terminological inexactitudes – people with noses so long you could have hung your duvet covers on them to dry. If they do decide to lock up the Wapping Three, and they have a perfect – if ancient – legal right to do exactly that, the trio will be the first malfeasants to be jugged by parliament for 132 years. MPs were debating a short motion to refer the culture committee’s report to the committee on standards and privileges, which is stuck with the job of deciding whether the three were lying, and if so, what should be done. Presumably they will get something on the gamut between being forced to apologise and chemical castration. – Simon Hoggart in The Guardian
