Building the Constitution

Erscheinungsjahr 2016
ISBN: 978-1-107-12409-7
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 16, 350 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 750 g

Reihe: Cambridge Studies in Constitutional Law

This revisionary perspective on South Africa's celebrated Constitutional Court draws on historical and empirical sources alongside conventional legal analysis to show how support from the African National Congress government and other political actors has underpinned the Court's landmark cases, which are often applauded too narrowly as merely judicial achievements. Standard accounts see the Court as overseer of a negotiated constitutional compromise and as the looked-to guardian of that constitution against the rising threat of the ANC. However, in reality South African successes have been built on broader and more admirable constitutional politics to a degree no previous account has described or acknowledged. The Court has responded to this context with a substantially consistent but widely misunderstood pattern of deference and intervention. Although a work in progress, this institutional self-understanding represents a powerful effort by an emerging court, as one constitutionally serious actor among others, to build a constitution.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fowkes, James

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Allgemeines Verfahrens-, Zivilprozess- und Insolvenzrecht Allgemeines Prozessrecht, Kostenrecht
• Rechtswissenschaften Bürgerliches Recht

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction; 2. Taking reality (legally) seriously; 3. Voting rights, politics, and trust; 4. The role of the Court: standard conceptions; 5. The role of the Court: constitution-building; 6. LGBTI equality; 7. Democracy; 8. Socio-economic rights; 9. Equality, eviction and engagement.

Über Autor(innen)

Fowkes, James
James Fowkes is a former clerk at the South African Constitutional Court and studied law at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and Yale Law School. He is currently a senior researcher at the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa, University of Pretoria.