Judging the Judges: Towards an Appropriate Role for the Judiciary in South Africa's Transformation

Leiden Journal of International Law

Volumn 20, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 965-981

  Dugard, Jackie ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND   (South Africa)

Author keywords

constitutional democracy; judicial activism; role and functioning of courts; separation of powers; socioeconomic rights; South Africa

Indexed keywords

EID: 85009545307     PISSN: 09221565     EISSN: 14789698     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0922156507004578     Document Type: Article

References (34)

1. Excerpt from a speech given by the former South African Chief Justice, Ishmael Mahomed, at a farewell function for John held at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1998, cited in A. Du Plessis, ‘John Dugard's Magisterial Accomplishments Rewarded with a Raw Deal’, (2006) 6 (10) Without Prejudice: The Law Magazine 30, at 31.
2. J. Dugard, Human Rights and the South African Legal Order (1978), xvi.
3. J. Dugard, ‘Should Judges Resign? - A Reply to Professor Wacks’, (1984) 101 South African Law Journal 286, at
4. J. Dugard, ‘Some Realism about the Judicial Process and Positivism - A Reply’, (1981) 98 South African Law Journal 372, at 374.
5. The Wacks-Dugard debate comprised a dialogue between John and another legal academic, Professor Raymond Wacks, about the potential for moral judges tomanoeuvre in an unjust legal order such as apartheid. In the first article - R. Wacks, ‘Judges and Injustice’, (1984) 101 South African Law Journal 266
6. See, e.g. C. Roederer and D. Moellendorf, Jurisprudence (2004), 74–6, in which, in their chapter on ‘Legal Positivism’ under a sub-heading, ‘The South African debate’, the authors outline the Wacks-Dugard debate (this is the prescribed textbook for jurisprudence students in the school of law at the University of the Witwatersrand).
7. D. Dyzenhaus, Judging the Judges, Judging Ourselves: Truth, Reconciliation and the Apartheid Legal Order (1998), 57.
8. Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), ‘The Judiciary: Principle of the Devil’, in Fighting for Justice: The Centre for Applied Legal Studies, 1978–1991 (1992), at 17.
9. The main advocate of judicial resignation was Raymond Wacks. His argument that moral judges do more harm within an illegitimate system (by conferring legitimacy on it), than they would by resigning, is set out in Wacks, note 8, and also R. Wacks, ‘Judging Judges: A Brief Rejoinder to Professor Dugard’, (1984) 101 South African Law Journal 295.
10. Inaugural address, published as J. Dugard, ‘The Judicial Process, Positivism and Civil Liberty’, (1971) 88 South African Law Journal 181, at 183.
11. A. Chaskalson, ‘From Wickedness to Equality: The Moral Transformation of South African Law’, (2003) 1(4) International Journal of Constitutional Law 590, at 599.
12. C. Albertyn and B. Goldblatt, ‘Facing the Challenge of Transformation: Difficulties in the Development of an Indigenous Jurisprudence of Equality’, (1998) 14 South African Journal on Human Rights 248, at 249.
13. D. Moseneke, ‘The Fourth Bram Fischer Memorial Lecture’, (2002) 18 South African Journal on Human Rights 309, at 314.
14. M. Pieterse, ‘Coming to Terms with Judicial Enforcement of Socio-Economic Rights’, (2004) 20 South African Journal on Human Rights 383, at 383.
15. J. Dugard, ‘Court of First Instance? Towards a Pro-poor Jurisdiction for the South African Constitutional Court’, (2006) 22 South African Journal on Human Rights 261.
16. S. Gloppen, ‘Courts and Social Transformation: An Analytical Framework’, in R. Gargarella, P. Domingo, and T. Roux (eds.), Courts and Social Transformation in New Democracies: An Institutional Voice for the Poor? (2006), at 35.
17. J. Dugard and T. Roux, ‘The Record of the South African Constitutional Court in Providing an Institutional Voice for the Poor: 1995-2004’, in Gargarella et al.
18. P. Bond and J. Dugard, ‘Water, Human Rights and Social Conflict: South African Experiences’, (forthcoming) Law, Social Justice and Global Development.
19. K. Pillay, ‘Addressing Poverty through the Courts: How Have We Fared in the First Decade of Democracy?’, paper presented at a conference, ‘Celebrating a Decade of Democracy’, Durban, 23-5 January 2004.
20. M. Heywood, ‘Preventing Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission in South Africa: Background, Strategies and Outcomes of the Treatment Action Campaign Case against the Minister of Health’, (2003) 19 South African Journal on Human Rights 278, at 308-9.
21. D. Bilchitz, ‘Giving Socio-economic Rights Teeth: The Minimum Core and Its Importance’, (2002) 119 South African Law Journal 484;
22. D. Bilchitz, ‘Towards a Reasonable Approach to the Minimum Core: Laying the Foundations for Future Socio-economic Rights Jurisprudence’, (2003) 19 South African Journal on Human Rights 1.
23. C. Sunstein, Designing Democracy:What Constitutions Do (2001), 224–37.
24. J. Klaaren, ‘Structures of Government in the 1996 South African Constitution: Putting Democracy back into Human Rights’, (1997) 13 South African Journal on Human Rights 3, at 17.
25. T. Roux, ‘Legitimating Transformation: Political Resource Allocation in the South African Constitutional Court’, (2003) 10(4) Democratization 92.
26. M. Bishop et al. ‘Constitutional Court Statistics for the 2005 Term’, (2006) 22 South African Journal on Human Rights 518, at 526.
27. On the subject of jurisprudential conservatism, see K. Klare, ‘Legal Culture and Transformative Constitutionalism’, (1998) 14 South African Journal on Human Rights 146.
28. L. Fuller, ‘The Forms and Limits of Adjudication’, (1972) 92 Harvard Law Review 353.
29. Quoted in P. Kurland, ‘The Rise and Fall of the “Doctrine” of Separation of Powers’, (1986) 85 Michigan Law Review 592, at 593.
30. G. Van Bueren, ‘Alleviating Poverty through the Constitutional Court’, (1999) 15 South African Journal on Human Rights 52, at 64.
31. N. Haysom, ‘Constitutionalism,Majoritarian Democracy and Socio-economic Rights’, (1992) 8 South African Journal on Human Rights 451, at 454.
32. J. Dugard, ‘Human Rights in South Africa: Past, Present and Future’, public lecture at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, 27 March 2007, available at http://www.chr.up.ac.za/about/news.html#dugard.
33. E. Dumbutshena, ‘Judicial Activism in the Quest for Justice and Equality’, in B. Ajibola and D. Van Zyl (eds.), The Judiciary in Africa (1998), 188.
34. N. Barber, ‘Prelude to the Separation of Powers’ (2001) 60 Cambridge Law Journal 59, 71-2.