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Democracy, good governance, human rights and socio-economic development are critical matters for South Africa and Africa as a whole. Our aim is to provide a forum where scholars, practitioners and policy-makers can debate the issues surrounding them and, in doing so, contribute to shared knowledge and insight.

In the spotlight

From precarity to pandemic: How the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated poverty, unemployment, and inequality in South Africa, pp 395-424

Written by William Manga Mokofe

The pre-Covid-19 world of work was rife with inequalities and difficulties, with more than 40 per cent of working-age South Africans unemployed. The majority of those in employment were barely able to eke out a living – between 20 per cent to 30 per cent were working in the informal economy, mostly without labour rights and social protection and...

Recently published

An overview of categories of vulnerability among on-demand workers in the gig economy (Part 1), pp 364-394

Confronting past atrocities: A critical analysis of the defunct Ethiopian Reconciliation Commission, pp 342-363

Different cities, different property-tax-rate regimes: Is it fair in an open and democratic society? pp 311-341

Rising from its ruins? The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal, pp 287-310

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“Dreams and aspirations deferred?”: The Constitutional Court’s approach to the fulfilment of socio-economic rights in the Constitution

Written by Justice Steven Majiedt

Dean’s Distinguished Lecture delivered at the Faculty of Law, University of the Western Cape, 3 October 2022. The Dean’s Distinguished Lectures were initiated in 2015, with the following judges as speakers: Dikgang Moseneke (2015), Navi Pillay (2016), Edwin Cameron (2017), Bernard Ngoepe (2018) and Mahomed Navsa (2019). The onslaught of COVID-19 brought with it a temporary interruption to the Dean’s Distinguished Lectures. Justice Steven Majiedt, who presented the lecture in 2022, obtained the BA (law) and LLB degree from UWC in 1981 and 1983 respectively. In his lecture, Justice Majiedt emphasised the important role played by the Constitutional Court as apex court in giving effect to the fulfilment of socio-economic rights. The deferential path adopted by the court when adjudicating socio-economic rights issues was highlighted with reference to a reluctance to define minimum core obligations and an abiding recognition of the duty imposed upon the state in the progressive realisation of such rights that has been subsumed in the principle of reasonableness.