Below is a draft academic article. You must complete the article by answering the two questions beneath the article. Your answers must use the same style as in the article and be no more than 1 500 words (both answers combined, including footnotes). You must reference your work and write in an acad...
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Below is a draft academic article. You must complete the article by answering the two questions
beneath the article.
In the early 1990s when South Africa was contemplating transition to democracy, Wiechers advanced
the case for the establishment of a constitutional court. He argued that this court would be able to
protect and enforce human rights and liberties [and] to provide expert knowledge and the political as
well as socio-economic understanding which is needed to judge intricate constitutional processes and
issues.
This view echoes the contemporary view that the Constitution that was designed to revolutionise the
South African state reflects the needs and interests of all South Africans. In its articulation of a unique
form of the separation of powers doctrine and in pursuit of ensuring a modern, robust constitutional
democracy, the judiciary has viewed its role as complementary to (as opposed to distinct from) the
legislative and executive branches of the state. As Corder remarks, in its first 15 years, the
Constitutional Court’s judgments were ‘careful, wide, fair and at time courageous commitment to
constitutional principle and practice’. So determined is the judiciary to uphold constitutional principle
and practice that it has recently admonished the executive, with a court declaring that a particular
government department was ‘grossly non-compliant’ and its representatives had shown up late for the
court hearing.
Some important developments in South African constitutional law are set out below. First, for the first
time in South Africa’s history, two judges and the Public Protector were impeached. South Africa also
has a multi-party government for the first time since the advent of democracy thirty years ago.
_________________
1 Marinus Wiechers ‘A constitutional court for South Africa’ in DJ van Vuuren et al South Africa in
the Nineties (1991) HSRC Publisher 290.
2 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996.
3 Pierre de Vos & Warren Freedman (eds) et al South African Constitutional Law in Context (2 ed
Oxford University Press 2021) 26-27.
4 de Lange v Smuts NO 1998 (3) SA 785 (CC) para 60.
5 Hugh Corder ‘South Africa’s Constitutional Court at 30: a solid foundation but cracks are showing’
The Conversation (14 April 2024)
<https://theconversation.com/south-africas-constitutional-court-at-30-a-solid-foundation-but-cracks-ar
e-showing-227570>.
6 National Department of Public Works v Fani and 77 Others [Collectively referred to as ‘Residents of
Farm Greydel (Airport Park)] and Another [2024] ZASCA 43 (8 April 2024) para 5.
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