CONSTITUTIONAL COMMENTARY AND EVENTS

1. 1. The Centre for Constitutional Rights (CFCR) is a unit of the FW de Klerk Foundation – a non-profit organisation dedicated to upholding the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (the Constitution). To this end, the CFCR seeks to promote the Constitution and the values, rights and principles enshrined in the Constitution; to monitor developments including legislation and policy that may affect the Constitution or those values, rights and principles; to inform people and organisations of their constitutional rights and to assist them in claiming their rights. The CFCR does so in the interest of everyone in South Africa.
      

The Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Mduduzi Manana, has admitted to assaulting a woman after footage emerged across several media platforms of the incident. It is apparently not the first such incident, as other women have made similar reports of his conduct to the South African Police Service (SAPS). Their response was lethargic at best, and indifferent at worst. From April 1 to May 21 this year, 63 women were murdered in Gauteng alone, with 10 said to have been killed by their partners. The system – from the Courts to the Department of Social Development, through to the SAPS – is inundated with matters involving the violation of women’s rights.

On 29 June 2017, the Constitutional Court (the Court) reaffirmed in Lawyers for Human Rights v Minister of Home Affairs (Lawyers for Human Rights matter) that the constitutional right to not to be deprived of personal freedom has two built-in constitutional aspects. First, the deprivation must be for a lawful, rationally-connected cause. Second, and of importance to the matter at hand, the conditions of the deprivation must be procedurally fair and cannot be above the scrutiny of the Courts. Judicial oversight is still required, even if there are lawful reasons for depriving a person of their personal freedom.