In this week’s contribution, Yvonne reflects on the gap between the constitutional right to food and the lived realities of hunger and food insecurity in South Africa. Drawing on submissions made to the National Inquiry into the Food Systems of South Africa conducted by the South African Human Rights Commission, the article explores the structural causes of food insecurity, including inadequate wages, corporate concentration in the food system, unequal land ownership, and weaknesses in social protection. The piece also considers the legal and policy gaps that continue to undermine the realisation of the right to food, and calls for stronger accountability, improved enforcement, and more coordinated governance responses. 

In this week’s post, Thato Gaffane reflects on the Stilfontein tragedy, which resulted in the deaths of more than 80 miners, as well as the deliberate starvation and dehydration of many others at Buffelsfontein Gold Mine (BGM) in Stilfontein, North West. Gaffane highlights that this unfortunate incident was caused by improper mine closure, despite the existence of a legal framework that imposes clear and enforceable duties to plan, fund, and implement mine closure.

In this post, Paul Mudau critically examines Zimbabwe’s surveillance laws, the extent to which they enable state monitoring of communications and the potential risks this poses to fundamental rights, including privacy, freedom of expression and political participation. The post further considers how expansive surveillance powers may affect electoral integrity, particularly in contexts where monitoring and data collection could be used to intimidate voters, suppress dissent, or undermine opposition activity.

In this week’s post, Professor Roxan Laubscher analyses the Constitutional Court’s approach to language rights in higher education, focusing on AfriForum v University of the Free State and related cases. The article examines how transformation, equality, and access have shaped judicial interpretation of section 29(2), and questions the impact of this approach on multilingualism, indigenous languages, and inclusive language policy in South Africa.

In this week’s post, Sandra Liebenberg unpacks her recent CCR article, which examines how the interpretation and adjudication of socio-economic rights can advance reparative justice in response to the deep patterns of socio-economic disadvantage and inequality produced by historical injustices such as colonialism and apartheid.

In this week’s post, Leo Boonzaier and Nurina Ally provide an update to their 2022 study, which found that the Constitutional Court of South Africa suffered from serious efficiency problems. The full results will soon be published in Volume 15 of the Constitutional Court Review. As their analysis shows, the overall picture remains troubling: the Court has not resolved its efficiency challenges and, in important respects, these have worsened.

Watch ALM's Ropafadzo Maphosa in conversation with the authors of Behind Prison Walls: Unlocking a Safer South Africa, Judge Edwin Cameron, Rebecca Gore, and Sohela Surajpal. Drawing on their firsthand encounters within the carceral system, the authors reflect on how these experiences informed their motivations for writing the book and the critical insights it offers into incarceration, justice, and the urgent need for prison reform.

In this post, Dunia P. Zongwe reflects on 35 years of Namibia’s Constitution. He looks back at its achievements and challenges, and then turns to the future—imagining a shift from the current liberal Bill of Rights towards a decolonial Bill of Rights and vision of constitutionalism grounded in Ubuntu.

In this post, Lawrence Dlamini reflects on 30 years of Constitutional Court jurisprudence, with a particular focus on administrative justice. He argues that the Court has worked to ground the right to administrative justice in a more coherent and principled legal framework, as required by the Constitution since the enactment of the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA).

This video is the fourth in a series of interviews that we conducted with members of the South African judiciary to commemorate 30 years of democracy in South Africa. In this episode, Judge Margie Victor reflects on the successes and challenges of the Constitution in protecting human rights and the impact of landmark cases on the country’s democratic development.

In this episode, Justice Majiedt reflects on the how the judiciary has worked to safeguard democratic values and uphold the rule of law in a changing social and political landscape. Drawing on landmark cases such as Grootboom and August v Electoral Commission, Justice Majiedt explores how the Constitutional Court’s jurisprudence has adapted to meet emerging socio-economic and political challenges. The conversation also highlights some of the most influential decisions that have shaped the trajectory of democracy and the protection of human rights in post-apartheid South Africa.

This video is the second in a series of interviews that we conducted with members of the South African Judiciary to commemorate 30 years of democracy in South Africa. This interview explored the evolving role of South Africa’s Constitution in protecting democracy and human rights over the past three decades. It also covered the successes and shortcomings of the constitutional framework, the impact of landmark court decisions, and the delicate balance the Court must maintain between respecting the separation of powers and ensuring government accountability.

This video is part of a series of interviews that we conducted with members of the South African Judiciary to commemorate 30 years of democracy in South Africa. In this episode, Justice Cameron reflects on the development of South Africa’s constitutional democracy since the Constitutional Court’s first judgment in 1995.

Introducing ALM’s new exclusive interview series reflecting on 30 years of the Constitutional Court. Each week, we sit down with justices to discuss the Court’s evolving role and the future of constitutional democracy. Stay tuned for insights from Justice Cameron, Justice Majiedt, Justice Theron, and former Acting Justice Margie Victor.

In this post, Marthinus van Staden and Michele van Eck highlight a significant oversight in South Africa’s labour law framework, which allows employers to unilaterally alter working conditions without employees' explicit consent. This gap disproportionately affects vulnerable groups, who struggle to navigate contracts laden with complex legal jargon. The authors advocate for labour law reforms mandating written employment contracts and the use of plain language in all employment-related documentation.